The Siege of Sarajevo

The Siege of SarajevoWhat do you know about this war?

When and Where?

It began April 5, 1992 and ended February 29, 1996

This makes it the longest siege of a city in modern warfare.

The city of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

WH

Y?

After WWII, Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia.

When the long term leader of Yugoslavia died, the Serb forces barricaded the city with artillery and snipers in an effort to overtake it.

WH

Y?

The Serbian forces were trying to create a new republic, called the Republika Sprska.

They hoped to accomplish this by cutting off all of Sarajevo, and taking over the city.

What happened?

-An estimated 10,000 people went missing or were killed.

-1,500 of these casualties were children.

-On top of that, 56,000 people were wounded

-Of these wounded, 15,000 were children.

-There were snipers everywhere, and signs saying “BEWARE, Sniper” were posted around the city. Certain streets began being known as “sniper alleys”

What do you think about this quote?

Do you think that this war is different than others and if so, how?

The siege of Sarajevo, as it came to be popularly known, was an episode of such notoriety in the conflict in the former Yugoslavia that one must go back to World War II to find a parallel in European history. Not since then had a professional army conducted a campaign of unrelenting violence against the inhabitants of a European city so as to reduce them to a state of medieval deprivation in which they were in constant fear of death. In the period covered in this Indictment, there was nowhere safe for a Sarajevan, not at home, at school, in a hospital, from deliberate attack.

— Prosecution Opening Statement, ICTY vs Stanislav Galić, 2003

The casualties…

Besides the thousands of civilian casualties, The city suffered other acts of violence, such as:

- An average of 329 shell impacts a day, but up to 3,777 shell impacts in one day.

- By 1993, all buildings had been damaged in some way, and 35,000 had been completely destroyed (including the national library).

How did it end?

Eventually, the UN intervened and ordered air strikes on the Serbian forces.

Several leaders were convicted by the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia) and were convicted and imprisoned.

Sarajevo has begun to repopulate, but much of the damage from this conflict still exists.