‘We know what is happening, we cannot walk away’

During the war in former Yugoslavia, the major powers dithered as Serb militias carried out brutal waves of ethnic cleansing. Guardian reporters who bore witness to the horror became more and more outspoken in their condemnation

- Ian Mayes

AMONG MANY COURAGEOUS correspondents covering the war in the former Yugoslavia, the reporting of Ed Vulliamy and Maggie O’Kane received plaudits and numerous awards. Both were inexorably drawn to where the action was, and wrote unblinking, vivid accounts. But what made their work controversial was their refusal to be neutral. For many journalists, including some of their colleagues at the Guardian, it was vital to maintain the distinction between being a witness - a “neutral” observer - and becoming actively caught up in the conflict. Some felt they crossed a line that should not have been crossed.

The war - a series of ethnic conflicts that started in 1991 and lasted for nearly a decade - left more than 200,000 dead and 1 million displaced. During the course of their reporting, Vulliamy and O’Kane became involved partisans, in the cause of the Bosnian Muslims, in particular. For O’Kane, "There really was no parity of guilt in this." Vulliamy, too, saw the Muslims, more than any others, as the “victim people” of the war, and his reporting became a passionate indictment of their oppressors.