Sarajevo Part 2

Sarajevo – Olympic city 1984, Sarajevo - besieged city 1992-1995.

Sarajevo was under siege by the Serb army for over 1400 days. The only way in or out was through a tunnel that took six months to build. There was no food, no arms, no water and heavy shelling from the surrounding hills. The Serbs tried on several occasions to take the city but it never fell. We took a four-hour tour with a guide who was 4 years old when the war started. He told us stories too horrific to repeat and how the people survived the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare.

The Balkan wars are too complex to get into any detail, but there was one aspect of the tour that stood out. As soon as the war broke out there was an arms embargo placed on all sides. The problem was the Serb army or People’s Army of Yugoslavia as it was known at the time, inherited almost all of the weapons from the former Yugoslavia. Therefore the arms embargo only hurt the Bosnians, who had almost no weapons at all. The US was trying to lift the embargo, but the UK and France blocked it. In the Clinton tapes released later, the UK and France were ok with ridding Europe of the Bosniaks as they hoped for a unified Christian Europe.

During the siege, someone had the idea to bring in a band and have a concert. This was a crazy idea in a war zone, as any large gathering was met with shelling and snipers. The offer reached Bruce Dickenson of Iron Maiden and he agreed to do it. The band arrived in Split, Croatia and was going to helicopter into Sarajevo as the UN controlled the airport. It was then decided the helicopter was far too dangerous and the plan was scrapped. Undeterred, Bruce arranged for the band to drive through to Bosnia and ended up smuggling through the tunnel. There was no way of advertising the concert or the Serbs would have certainly found out, so it was kept secret until the day of. That day it was spread by word of mouth and the concert went off. There is a documentary on this event called Scream for Me Sarajevo.

Sarajevo is one of the best cities I’ve ever been to. Delicious food, diverse and resilient people, and a crossroads of cultures. All of this is under a heavy air that still exists today.