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Published: September 25th 2013
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The JAT Airways turboprop from Belgrade to Sarajevo took only forty minutes, even if it did sound like a Lancaster bomber. The first thing we did when we stepped into the arrivals hall of Sarajevo Airport was to change some British pounds into the local currency, the convertible mark. Then we caught a cheap taxi to our hotel.
From the taxi, we noticed how hilly Sarajevo was. It was on these hills that snipers hid during the Bosnian War. We also noticed the abundance of mosques. Minarets were everywhere, a distinct difference from the Orthodox Christianity of Serbia. "Look," said Michael, pointing at a dilapidated building we were driving past. It was pockmarked with bullet holes.
The driver noticed us looking. "From war," he said.
The Siege of Sarajevo lasted for almost four years. It occurred between April 1992 and February 1996, making it the longest siege of a capital city in modern warfare.
Before the war, Muslim Bosnians (known as Bosniaks) made up 44% of Bosnia and Herzegovina's population. Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats made up most of the remainder. When Yugoslavia started to fall apart, the Bosniaks held a referendum for independence. The Bosnian Serb
population said they would boycott it. The Bosniaks didn't care and held it anyway. When the results in favour of independence came in, Bosnian Serbs began protesting.
Backed by Belgrade, Bosnian Serbs living in Serb-heavy regions of Bosnia began to assemble themselves into armed groups. They rounded up Bosniaks from their towns and villages and threw them out. Things escalated when Muslim settlements were ransacked or burnt to the ground. Then the killings began. One of the worst atrocities was the Srebrenica Massacre.
The massacre began with a Serb plan to capture all Bosniak men of fighting age in the town of Srebrenica. But in the round up, young boys and older men were taken too. Serb militia trucked the Bosniaks to abandoned schools and warehouses, holding the men there before driving them to execution fields. In groups, the men were lined up and shot. Then the next busload arrived. It was an effective but slow process. To speed things up, instead of bussing the Bosniaks to the fields, the Serbs simply tossed hand grenades into the warehouses.
Eleven days later, more than eight thousand Bosnian Muslims were dead. The man in charge of the death squads
was Ratko Mladic, later described as the Butcher of Bosnia. In 2012, Mladic's trial opened in The Hague. The former military commander was accused of war crimes and genocide. The United Nations described the massacre as the worst crime on European soil since the Second World War.
"Here is your hotel," said the taxi driver, pulling up next to a large yellow building. During some of the worst periods of the siege, foreign journalists had stayed in the Holiday Inn. It was situated along the infamous Sniper Alley, and was hit a fair few times, suffering widespread damage. This gave the hotel the distinction of offering its most attractive rooms below ground level.
We paid the taxi driver and stood in Sniper Alley. It looked so normal now.
If you have enjoyed this shirt excerpt from the Balkan Odyssey, then perhaps you would like to buy the kindle version or paperback version. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Balkan-Odyssey-Travels-Yugoslavia-oh-ebook/dp/B00DQ6V324/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372689617&sr=1-2&keywords=the+balkan+odyssey Jason Smart www.theredquest.com
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Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
I'm thoroughly enjoying your book...
and hope to visit the Balkans myself in the next couple of years.