Balkan’s Dark Side – a Sarajevo War Tour
Our Sarajevo War Tour is a must do tour when in Sarajevo! Many people have heard for this small country only through media which were reporting horrifying scenes coming from this region. Bosnia & Herzegovina has suffered very hard aggression and it has been found as one of the greatest in modern history.
The war in Bosnia & Herzegovina started on the 6th of April 1992. After four years of heavy siege, war ended on the 14th of December 1995. This war can be tightly bounded with the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Since living in the multi-ethnic society and surroundings, Socialist Republic of Bosnia & Herzegovina was counting three different nations as the major populations of the country: Bosniaks (most of them, when speaking in percentages, were Muslims), Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats. The obvious implication was referendum which happened to be on the 29th of February 1992.
Political referendum was rejected by the representatives of Bosnian Serbs who were living in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnia’s declaration of independence led to the war. The war was supported and planned by Radovan Karadzic and Serbian Republic Army. They also had support by the Serbian government of Slobodan Milosevic and Yugoslav National Army.
The idea of the war was to have ethnically clean pro Serb territory. That can be strong enough answer why the war actually happened. War spread all over the country much quicker than expected. The citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina were pretty much unprepared for the war. War happened all of a sudden and was a part of very well planned strategy.
Description
Our Sarajevo War Tour is the best example of the horrible things that Bosnia was going through from 1992-1995. On the tour you will have the closest experience to the latest war that affected Europe. While driving through the whole Sarajevo, pay attention to the buildings because there are ”scars of war” everywhere. Bullet and shrapnel holes are still visible everywhere as a witness of death, blood and tears of the innocent.
Sarajevo War Museum – Tunnel of Hope
Tour includes a visit to the Tunnel of hope, a Sarajevo museum and the most important building during the war. There you will learn more about its significance of salvation of Sarajevo. The Tunnel was constructed during the siege, in 1993. It was located under the airport railway and had a purpose to connect two sides – Dobrinja and Butmir.
At the very beginning, the tunnel had name “D-B” tunnel. Those were the initial letters of the previously mentioned territories where Bosnian soldiers of the were positioned. The tunnel had enormous significance in the war. It was the only way to get to the free territory. It had many purposes – transport of weapons, citizens, medicines, food and water, wounded people and trade. Who and how used to pass through it, you will find out in detail by booking our Sarajevo war tour.
Most of our guides were themselves the children and are the living witnesses of Sarajevo in war. Each and every survivor of the aggression actually have own story to tell. Each survivor has memories to share and the strength to repeat it as many times as needed. All in order for horrors not to happen to anyone again.
You are also going to be shown a documentary movie about the plan and construction of the Tunnel. In the short documentary you will see the destruction of Sarajevo during this terrible siege. Surely you will recognize many of Sarajevo buildings through the flames and destruction.
Markale Market & Sniper nests
There are many points of interest on the tour where Sarajevo civilians ware engaged. Such is the market place Markale, a place of two horrible massacres. These massacres were also a part of the plan of the Serbian aggressors. The first massacre happened on the 5th of February 1994. 68 people died and 144 suffered severe injuries. The second massacre happened on the 28th of August 1995. 43 persons were killed and 84 have suffered severe injuries.
Apart from Markale market, you will also visit places from where sniper nest were situated that terrorized Sarajevo citizens. Dobrinja, the part of the Sarajevo under the mountain chains, is a city block which was constructed for the needs of Olympic Games. This part of the city served as Olympic village where participants of Olympic Games ware situated.
Dobrinja is approachable, easy for orientation and close to the Olympic Mountains. City block was very well planned and organized before the construction even begun. If you look at Dobrinja from air, you will notice that buildings have been positioned like squares in a row. This way of construction was perfect match for the sniper positions. Hundreds of citizen died only in Dobrinja during the war period from sniper hits.
