TWENTY years ago this week the siege of Sarajevo ended, bringing to an end a deadly blockade that had lasted 1,425 days – the longest siege in modern history. The siege began in April 1992, as Yugoslavia broke into independent nations. Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia, fell under attack from Bosnian Serb military groups with the backing of the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army, which was against Bosnian independence. The Bosnian Serbs encircled the city and placed Sarajevo’s 500,000 citizens under siege. Sarajevo was bombarded by artillery and snipers picked off residents as they walked in the streets. A total of 11,541 civilians were killed, 1,601 of whom were children, and more than 50,000 were injured.
The war in Bosnia was officially declared over with the signing of the US-brokered Dayton Accords in December 1995, resulting in two autonomous entities inside Bosnia: the Bosniak-Croat majority federation and the Serb-majority Republika Srpska. Although the Dayton deal had stopped the shelling and snipers, Sarajevo remained surrounded by the Bosnian Serbs and under siege until March 1996. During the war, its residents had lived through several ceasefires that collapsed and the bombardment of the city would restart with a vengeance soon after, leaving residents in a state of limbo and wary of any talk of peace.
Ending the siege was one of the most contentious deals of the Dayton peace deal as it meant the Serbs having to give up control of five suburbs in and around the city. In the weeks preceding the handover, Serbs dug up the graves of their relatives to take their bodies with them, refusing to leave them behind in what they claimed would be a Muslim country. Tens of thousands of Serbs then fled, burning down houses and shops as they left. Their departure and the lifting of the siege meant that only then, three months after the Dayton Accords, did Sarajevans finally believe the war was over.
I first arrived in Bosnia a few months later in the summer of 1996. In Sarajevo life had returned like a stranger – the blockades were gone, coffee shops began to reopen, and Sarajevans – happy they could walk the streets again without fear of snipers – began to contemplate how they would rebuild their lives and their city. It was never going to be easy – the city was in ruins, industry was destroyed and there was high unemployment.
I spent the next four summers in Sarajevo, working as a volunteer. I set up a photography project in the city’s main orphanage, teaching kids aged six to 16 the basics as a creative outlet project. We ran around the city photographing the destroyed landscape and the rebuilding process, developing our photographs in a makeshift basement darkroom to document first-hand the city in the aftermath of war.
When I returned to Bosnia a few months ago to document 20 years of peace, Sarajevo was a very different city. Often listed as one of the top city destinations for tourism and investment, the Bosnian capital puts on a brave cosmopolitan face for the international community. Its process of rebuilding after the war has rebranded it, with shopping malls, hotels and apartment blocks making it look like any European city. Bosnia and Herzegovina has now started the long road to joining Europe with its formal admission to the EU two weeks ago.
I caught up with one of my former students from the photo project – Oggi Tomic. As a nine-year-old he survived the siege bunkered down most days in the basement of the orphanage, occasionally risking shelling and snipers to steal food.
Like all Sarajevans, Tomic is immensely proud of his home city not only because it survived the siege and was rebuilt, but also because it remains a strongly multi-cultural and multi-faith city; a crossroads where East meets West. He is grateful but amazed he survived when so many were killed around him. Today, as he watches rolling TV news footage of the sieges in Syria, he wonders how it could have been allowed to happen all over again.
“It’s very very sad and almost surreal to watch these news reports,” he says. “Syria is a full-on repeat and even worse in comparison – yet the world is standing by letting it happen.
“It seems the world has learnt nothing after Sarajevo.”
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