Balkan Journal | Bosnia and Herzegovina | 2022
The Scars of Sarajevo
Arriving on the long road from Belgrade and crossing into Bosnia and Herzegovina, you are met with one of the most idyllic landscapes one can find in Europe. Dense forests along with openings of farmlands with rolling hills, and little villages dotted around. As you get closer to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, every so often you notice an abandoned building or two, unlike normal derelict structures that are fairly common across the Balkans, it becomes apparent these are covered in bullet holes, and have remained from the Bosnian war.
The Bosnian war was an international conflict from 1992 to 1995 following the breakup of Yugoslavia. The fighting was inter-ethnic, mainly between the Muslim Bosniak population, which made up the majority of Bosnia, and Bosnian Serbs and Croats. Following a referendum of independence, which was widely boycotted by the Serbs, the JNA (Yugoslav People’s Army) under the command of Slobodan Milosevic and Bosnian Serb forces mobilised their forces within the country to protect Serb regions. The war soon spread across the country. The war saw various atrocities committed including indiscriminate shelling of civilians, use of concentration camps and ethnic cleansing. The capital Sarajevo saw a blockade during the war known as ‘the siege of Sarajevo’, in which Serb forces continuously attacked the city with shelling and sniper attacks. The war finally ended with the Dayton Accords being signed, the peace agreement negotiated in Dayton, Ohio, which divided Bosnia into two entities: The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Republika Srpska. Although the war has ended, tensions along ethnic lines remain high within the country.
Arriving in Sarajevo, it doesn’t take long before you see the remains of the war and the siege on the city. Within minutes of getting off the minibus from Serbia, I was walking through a residential neighbourhood in the outskirts of the city, where apartment blocks stood covered in bullet holes. They had recently been done up, with new roofs and a fresh coat of paint, but the holes still sat there catching the light from the evening sun. It was only in Sarajevo I began to see the flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the flag I had seen flying in the hills and fields on my way to the city had been the flag of Republika Srpska, the Serbian flag without the coat of arms. I would later be told by a man in Sarajevo that you have to be careful which flag you display where, as showing a Bosnian flag in Serb areas can cause issues, and vice versa. As I walked closer to the city centre, along the river opposite the hills where the Serbs would have fired down upon, the number of bullet holes in the buildings grows larger. All across the city, even in tight streets between large buildings you can see the holes in the buildings still.
Walking around the edge of the city I came across the Jajce barracks, sitting atop of the Vratnik neighbourhood with a view of the whole of Sarajevo, the barracks remain abandoned, and half destroyed. Jajce Barracks was constructed by the Austro-Hungarians in 1914, originally it was called Prince Eugene Barracks but renamed to Jajce when it was turned into a military hospital. After the end of the First World War, the site was used to house soldiers from the Kingdom of Yugoslavia based in the region. After being used briefly by occupying fascist forces during the Second World War, the building remained a base for the Yugoslav National Army until the war broke out in 1992. During the war, Bosnian soldiers used the barracks, and in turn it saw heavy shelling from Serb forces which has left it half destroyed to this day. Now the only visitors it gets are graffiti artists and youth hanging around the building. In 2009 the building was added to the list of national monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Walking down the hill, situated not far from the barracks in the east of Sarajevo is the Martyr’s cemetery, or Kovači cemetery. Many of those buried here were civilians that were killed in the siege of the city. Over 11,500 people died during the attacks on Sarajevo, around 1,500 were children. The residents of Sarajevo would have experienced around 300 explosive rounds per day over the 4-year period and over 50,000 were injured. Alija Izetbegović, the first president of independent Bosnia who signed the Dayton Agreement is also buried in the cemetery. The site echoes the horrors of the Bosnian war as what seems like endless graves span the length of the hill it sits upon.
On the southern outskirts of the city on Trebević mountain, nestled away in the forests under the new cable car system, is the remains of an old bobsled track. Between February the 8th to the 19th 1984, the winter Olympics were held in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. A large concrete bobsled track was constructed, starting at the top of the mountain and leading down back towards the city, and were East Germany won both gold and Silver on both two and four-man races. After the Olympics the track was used for bobsled championships attracting teams from various countries as well as from within Yugoslavia. Today the track sits collecting graffiti and moss, forgotten about, with the occasional group of kids walking up it or skating along the flat parts near the top. Some segments of the track were damaged in the war and have fallen into complete disrepair with large chunks of concrete falling off.
Not far from the bobsled track is the Bistrik Kula Observatory tower stands, covered from top to bottom in bullet and artillery holes. The buildings are hidden in an opening in the forests with a view of Sarajevo. The first tower on the right was built as a military fortification during the Austro-Hungarian empire and was used as such until the end of the first world war, where it was left abandoned until 1967. It was acquired by the Orion Astronomical Society and used as an observatory, and later in the 1980s, the second tower was built to properly house a telescope and other equipment. The Observatory became a popular tourist attraction, especially after the 1984 winter Olympics. During the war the towers were badly damaged and occupied by Serb forces whilst sieging Sarajevo, and ever since have been left as ruins, acting as a stark reminder of the brutality of the Bosnian war.
Down from the observatory, on the steep path from Trebević back into Sarajevo, a collection of ruins sits above the city. Most the ruins are of houses with one building that appears to be an old police station, that was likely targeted by Serb forces. Like many other ruins, artillery and bullet holes cover the buildings.
Painted on the side of a block in the city centre of Sarajevo is a large mural of a flower with the words ‘remembering Srebrenica’ above it. Srebrenica is a town located in the far east of Bosnia and Herzegovina within the Republika Srpska. During July of 1995 near the end of the war, Bosnian Serbs singled out and murdered 8,372 Bosniak Muslim men and boys under the command of Serb general Ratko Mladić. Almost all the Bosniak Muslims in Srebrenica were refugees, sheltering from the violence after the UN deemed the town a ‘safe area’. The Serbs outnumbered and overran the Dutch UN peacekeeping force, and started singling out women and children under 12, most of the men were killed by gunshot and bodies were dumped in mass graves. Srebrenica remains the largest mass murder in Europe since the second world war. Excavations are still carried out to this day across Bosnia to identify the victims of the war and genocide, and demining is still an ongoing task with some still killed by leftover mines today.
