The old woman was lying on a filthy bench in a roadside shack - holding tightly to a stick which she kept by her side to beat away the rats.

When Bradford aid worker Nora Kilcoyne saw her she knew she could not just leave her there. Together with fellow workers at the Bosnian charity St Joseph the Worker, she set about finding her a place to live out her last years in dignity.

Now, thanks to people across Bradford and West Yorkshire who give to the charity backed by Mrs Kilcoyne, Dragica is safe and sound in a private nursing home near Sarajevo.

And her rescuer, Sandy Lane grandmother Mrs Kilcoyne, was delighted to catch up with her on her most recent visit to the former war-zone.

"When we first found her, she was just in a roadside shack, on her own, just lying there," recalled Mrs Kilcoyne, the veteran of repeated missions to work with destitute people in the former Yugoslavia and Romania.

"She is in her 70s. She was crying out to us. She had a stick that she used to hit the rats and mice that crawled over her bed.

"She couldn't sleep because she was so frightened of them.

"We inquired about placing her in a home in Mostar, but there was only one home for elderly people, and it already had a thousand people on its waiting list."

In the end the charity managed to find her a place in The Institute in Bakovici, near Sarajevo, which cares for elderly people and people with mental and physical impairments.

"She is very happy there," Mrs Kilcoyne said, after visiting the Institute and dropping off sacks full of medical and other supplies from supporters in Bradford.

"There are people in the Mostar area trying to look after each other, but they are getting no money at all from their government, even though Western governments have given millions - it's not getting to the people in need."

The costs of keeping Dragica in the Institute are £50 a week and the charity intends to keep paying as long as she needs it.

Meanwhile, Mrs Kilcoyne, who took donations worth £1,000 with her on the most recent trip, will carry on raising as much cash as she can from her network of Bradford supporters before her next trip out to Bosnia in October.