A view of an old power plant damaged during the Bosnian war in Sarajevo, Bosnia, Friday, March 4, 2022.
Armin Durgut / AP
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Armin Durgut / AP
A view of an old power plant damaged during the Bosnian war in Sarajevo, Bosnia, Friday, March 4, 2022.
Armin Durgut / AP
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina – News from Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities under incessant bombardment by the Russian Army has caused painful memories for survivors of the siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo. 1990s.
And yet, many people have spent hours glued to their TV screens since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine late last month.
“Not too long ago, we were them,” said Amra Muftic, a survivor of the 1992-1995 siege, watching news reports showing civilians sheltering from Russian missile attacks, shelling and gunfire in basements and subway stations.
“If our experience is anything to go by – and I have a feeling – things are about to get much worse,” for them, she added.
Bosnian Serb forces besieged Sarajevo in the early 1990s, during the bloody partition of Yugoslavia. Some 350,000 people have been trapped, for 46 months, in their multi-ethnic city, subjected to daily artillery and sniper attacks, and cut off regular access to electricity, food, water, medicine and the outside world.
More than 11,000 people were killed in the siege, including more than 1,000 children. Countless others were injured.
“We know how they feel. We have survived the longest siege in modern history,” said Elma Vukotic, an anesthesiologist, as she and paramedics headed the week. This is outside their Sarajevo hospital, wearing a medical gown and holding a blue balloon. and the yellow color of the Ukrainian apartment – and coincidentally, the Bosnian apartment as well. Vukotic said their spontaneous show of solidarity was the least they could do with their Ukrainian colleagues.
“All wars are painful, all attacks against civilians are abhorrent, but what is happening to Ukrainians today is especially traumatic for us because they are so close. and was in a very similar situation to us” three decades ago, Vukotic said.
“The TV images of pregnant women waiting to give birth in the basement of Kyiv hospital, hastily converted into an emergency bomb shelter, make me feel sick; I know exactly how they feel, how terrified they must be,” she added. “Also, I think we can all empathize with the unwillingness of ordinary Ukrainians to accept that war is imminent until Russian missiles and bombs fall on homes and schools. their schools and hospitals.”
A view of a retirement home destroyed during the Bosnian war in Sarajevo, Bosnia, Friday, March 4, 2022.
Armin Durgut / AP
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Armin Durgut / AP
A view of a retirement home destroyed during the Bosnian war in Sarajevo, Bosnia, Friday, March 4, 2022.
Armin Durgut / AP
The Bosnian War began when the Bosnian Serbs, with the help of the Yugoslav army, attempted to create purely ethnic territories with the aim of joining with neighboring Serbia. More than 100,000 people have been killed and 2 million – more than half of the country’s population – displaced in the conflict.
The Serb leadership argued throughout the war that multi-ethnic Bosnia was not a country at all and that along with its Catholic Croats and Bosnians, who were predominantly Muslim and made up about half population, it should be divided between neighboring Serbia and Croatia. The Bosnians, they insisted, were merely treacherous converts of Serbs who had abandoned their original faith (orthodox Christianity) centuries ago.
Many in Sarajevo have heard echoes of those old insults in Vladimir Putin’s recent statements, made to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
A United Nations arms embargo maintained in Bosnia throughout the conflict in the 1990s resulted in the Bosnian Serb militia, armed and supported by the Serbian-controlled Yugoslav Army. control, an advantage in battle. They conquered 60% of Bosnia’s territory in less than two months, committing terrible atrocities against their fellow Bosniaks and Croats.
In 1995, the US-brokered Dayton peace agreement ended the bloodshed in Bosnia by dividing the country into two semi-autonomous parts – one run by Serbs and the other by Bosnians and Serbs. Croatia shared. The two are linked by weak multi-ethnic institutions.
But living together in the aftermath of a brutal, fraternal conflict has proven difficult.
The post-war power-sharing system maintained a polarized and toxic political climate in Bosnia, while its entrenched nationalist leaders constantly engendered ethnic hatreds to achieve political interests.
With the backing of Moscow, especially the pro-Russian Bosnian Serbs, for many years advocated independence for their region. Meanwhile, networks of sectarian patronage and pervasive corruption, gradually becoming an integral part of the system, ensured that Bosnia remained one of the poorest countries in Europe, increasingly emerging. show the best and brightest.
Zoka Catic, a filmmaker and journalist from Sarajevo, who has spent years documenting the devastating impact of war on the mental health of Bosnians of all ethnic stripes.
He said that no matter how the conflict in Ukraine ends, there is no such thing as a happy ending to a war.
“It was only a matter of time … before (Ukrainians) turned into us: sad, unhappy people who experienced the worst feeling in the world – helplessness.”
