Sarajevo in 1992 was the most dangerous city in the world, the focus of a vicious war fought from the surrounding mountaintops where Serb troops rained artillery shells down on to the helpless population.

Life for the 400,000 residents trapped during the siege was a constant struggle for survival. Venturing out to buy food involved a dash between buildings in a desperate attempt to avoid the ever-present eyes of the snipers in the apartment blocks.

There were many terrible tales of tragedy, young children cut down as they played in the streets, lovers targeted as they met on one of the many bridges across the Milijacka river, which divided Sarajevo, whole families killed by indiscriminate shellfire.

It was wholesale slaughter, which the international community was unable to stop until parts of the city had been reduced to ruins. Throughout the siege, especially during the bitter winter months, many people in Sarajevo died simply because they had insufficient food or fuel.

In a city without heating and with many of the windows broken, women, children and the men who were too old to fight the Serbs would go out each day to scavenge for firewood, knowing that they might never return home because of a sniper’s bullet or another burst of shellfire from the gun positions on the mountains.

Yet, amid the carnage, it was possible to find evidence of normal life, signs that the Bosnian Muslims and Croats in Sarajevo were determined to keep alive the culture and social life of a once-proud city.

The population of Sarajevo was cosmopolitan. The Muslims made up the largest percentage at just under 50 per cent. The Bosnian Croats were 7 per cent and the Serbs about 27 per cent.

One of Sarajevo’s best-loved actors and musicians used to host a weekly lunch party at the city’s writers’club. Buses continued to run, some of the shops remained open, and the people . . . well, even in the darkest moments they eventually became numb to the brutality around them. In 1992 they were not to know that the siege of Sarajevo was to become the longest siege in modern warfare.

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