The Balkans: born from the fires of war

The countries in the region offer a peek into the horrors of war, and the craving for peace

- Stanley Carvalho

As our bus, with a motley group of tourists, careened down the hills, the spires and minarets dotting Sarajevo came into sight. Slowly, the city, sitting pretty between hills, began to unfold itself. As cameras clicked, our Slovenian guide, Osman, interrupted: “It is an advantage to be protected all around by hills but it is also a disadvantage, the people here have suffered.” Osman was ostensibly referring to the Bosnian war of 1992-95, when snipers took position in the hills and held the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina to siege.

Serbian troops besieged Sarajevo from April 1992 to 1996, deploying thousands of soldiers, targeting it with both heavy and light weaponry. The siege, deemed the longest in modern history, killed over 11,000, including some 1,600 children. “...all we want is peace,” Osman remarked.

As the bus descended into the city, part of our 10-day tour of three Balkan countries, our attention was focused on taking in the views before we alighted at Holiday Inn, the hotel that played host to journalists covering the Bosnian war. Later, on our walking tour, we found ourselves near the Latin Bridge and the exact spot where Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were shot dead by a Serb assassin, sparking World War 1.

Sarajevo suffered during both the world wars and the 1990s war. They have left their scars—buildings with bullet holes, broken windows, cemeteries with memorials, the Sarajevo roses on streets (crater marks caused by shooting filled with red resin to look like roses and serve as memorials), museums on the siege and wars and sombre memories in the minds of survivors.