For better or worse, the city of Sarajevo has played a role in many of Europe’s wars in the 20th century. Not only was the city’s streets the backdrop for the assassination that triggers World War I, but from April 5, 1992 to February 29, 1996 experienced the longest siege of a major city in modern history.
The city, called the ‘Jerusalem of Europe’ for its ethnic heterogeneity, was surrounded and besieged by Serbian forces. The Serbian forces uses artillery and snipers to wear down inhabitants. The fourty-six month siege destroyed 60 percent of the city’s buildings and killed more than 10,000.
From Strange Maps:
This map gives a bird’s eye view of Sarajevo during the siege, almost in the style of a naïve children’s painting.
- A red line indicates the border between the government-held city and Serbian-held surrounding areas.
- The Serbian side of that line is stocked with the diverse instruments of raining death on the city below.
- Many of Sarajevo’s landmarks are shown (mosques, churches, a football stadium), but not named; maybe someone familiar with the city can provide some help.
- In the bottom left-hand corner, the UN-held airport is shown inside the Sarajevo line; in reality, Sarajevans could only access the outside world by going below the airport, via the tunnel that is shown just to the left of the cargo plane on the runway.
Click on the map for a full-sized image.
Recommended Reading on the Siege:
- Sarajevo Under Siege: Anthropology in Wartime by Ivana Macek
- Blue Helmets and Black Markets: The Business of Survival in the Siege of Sarajevo by Peter Andreas
- The Quick and the Dead: Under Siege in Sarajevo by Janine Di Giovanni
Christopher R. Albon is a political science Ph.D. specializing in armed conflict, public health, human security, and health diplomacy.
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