The siege of Sarajevo was one of the longest sieges in the history of modern warfare and the longest siege of a capital city ever, and on this day the citizens of Sarajevo remember the 32nd anniversary of daily suffering and suffering.
The siege of Sarajevo lasted a total of 44 months or 1,425 days, from April 5, 1992 to February 29, 1996, which is three times longer than the siege of Stalingrad in World War II.
On average, 329 missiles were fired at Sarajevo per day, while a total of about 50,000 tons of artillery missiles were fired at the city. These figures in themselves show all the horror of war destruction in Sarajevo during the siege.
During the siege, 11,541 citizens of Sarajevo died, including 1,601 children.
– Civilian casualties –
The first civilian victims of the siege of Sarajevo, Suada Dilberović and Olga Sučić, were killed on April 5 on the Vrbanja bridge, which is now named after them Suada i Olga Bridge, while the last victim of the siege of Sarajevo was Mirsada Durić, who was killed in an attack on a tram on April 9. January 1996, at the National Museum.
During the siege, cultural, religious, educational, residential buildings, as well as markets, queues for bread, water… were shelled daily.
The National and University Library, better known as the Town Hall building, the main Post Office, the Zetra Olympic Hall, the Olympic Museum, the Oriental Institute, the building of the daily newspaper “Oslobođenje” in Nedžarići, the city maternity hospital “Zehra Muidović” in the Jezero neighborhood were completely destroyed and burned.
Numerous buildings were also heavily damaged, such as the RTV dom building, and even modified rockets weighing hundreds of kilograms were fired at residential buildings in Alipašino Polje.
Throughout the siege, there were rare periods when there was electricity in Sarajevo, but almost no water.
The citizens of Sarajevo went through special horrors during the winter when, in addition to all the suffering and the lack of food, electricity and water, there was also a lack of firewood. All this was the reason that during the war in Sarajevo, numerous trees were visited, while many families were left without furniture, clothes and books that were used for any warming.
Only one of the massacres was the one in Ferhadija, then Vasa Miskina Street, better known as the Sarajevo Bread Row Massacre.
An artillery attack during the siege on May 27, 1992 was carried out by the forces of the RS army from a position in the direction of Bori, from where three grenades were fired, which exploded among civilians waiting in line for bread in Vase Miskina Street (today’s Ferhadija), Sarajevo’s main street. At that time, 26 citizens of Sarajevo were killed and 108 were wounded.
Massacres are also known in the queue for water. The massacre in Halači Street on Baščaršija in Sarajevo took place on the 23rd of 1992 during the siege of Sarajevo. On that day, a shell fired from Serbian positions killed eight and seriously wounded three civilians in the historical and cultural center of Sarajevo who were waiting in line for water.
On January 15, 1993, eight Sarajevo citizens were killed and 19 wounded from the explosion of a grenade fired from the position of the RS Army at the water line near Sarajevo Brewery.
The Markale market and closed market in the old part of Sarajevo were shelled twice. For the first time, since the grenade explosion at the Markale market on February 5, 1994, 68 civilians were killed and 144 wounded. In the massacre at the very end of the war, on August 28, 1995, near the Markale City Market, 43 civilians were killed and 84 were wounded.
– Massacres against children as well –
Children in schools were not spared either. In the Alipašino Polje neighborhood, on ZAVNOBIH Square, there were the premises of the Elementary School “Prvi Maj” (today “Fatima Gunić” Elementary School), which was shelled on November 9, 1993. From the shrapnel that entered the classroom through small openings between the protective concrete partition, the teacher Fatima Gunić and three students were killed, and 21 civilians were wounded.
Several massacres were also committed in the Sarajevo settlement of Dobrinja, which was almost cut off from the rest of the city during the war.
The first massacre took place on June 1, 1993, in the Dobrinja III settlement, when 15 civilians were killed and 80 civilians, mostly children, were wounded from two mortar shells fired from Serbian positions, in the place between the street of the city of Baku and the Dobrinja Children’s Square. Grenades were fired at the place where the Bajram mini-football tournament was taking place.
The second massacre in Dobrinja took place on July 12, 1993 at 37 Hakije Turajlića Street, when 13 civilians were killed and 15 wounded in the line for water from a mortar shell fired from Serbian positions.
After that, there were two massacres in the water queues, when the Serbian forces hit people with grenades who were waiting to fill the canisters with water, considering that the Serbian army had previously cut off the water supply. The first massacre took place on June 21, 1995. Then a shell was fired from the direction of Nedžarići and hit the “Skender-Kulenović” Elementary School, where a large number of people were waiting in line for water. On that occasion, seven people were killed and 12 were wounded, while the second massacre took place on July 21, 1995. At that time, six civilians were killed and fifteen were wounded.
Massacre of civilians in besieged Sarajevo in places of mass gathering of people, such as gatherings queuing for water, queuing for bread and at the markets was a common practice of the Army of the Republika Srpska at that time, which, together with its helpers, kept Sarajevo under siege.
There were even massacres in cemeteries, at the time of burying the murdered, that is, the dead.
The massacre also took place on September 28, 1992, in the Sarajevo settlement Boljakov Potok, Novi Grad municipality, during the campaign of shelling of Sarajevo. On that day, a shell fired from Serbian positions killed nine civilians who had gathered for the funeral of Fatima Jusić at the local cemetery, and wounded twenty more seriously or lightly.
– Judgments –
Many citizens were killed or wounded by sniper shots, crossing city intersections or in their homes.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia sentenced Stanislav Galić, the former commander of the Sarajevo-Romania Corps of the Army of Republika Srpska, to life imprisonment for terrorizing the citizens of Sarajevo. Dragomir Milošević, Galić’s successor at the head of the Sarajevo-Romania Corps of the VRS, was sentenced to 29 years in prison.
For terrorizing civilians in Sarajevo with sniper and artillery attacks, among other things, the former president of Republika Srpska and military leader of the VRS, Radovan Karadžić, was sentenced to life imprisonment.
VRS commander Ratko Mladić was sentenced to the same prison sentence in the first instance before the Hague Tribunal, among other things, for terrorizing civilians in Sarajevo with sniper and artillery attacks.
In the judgments of the ICTY, it was established that the units of the Sarajevo-Romania Corps of the VRS deliberately targeted civilians by carrying out a campaign of terror aimed at putting pressure on the authorities in Sarajevo, AA writes.
