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STORY: BOZNIA HERZEGOVINA / SARAJEVO ANNIVERSARY
TRT: 1.41
SOURCE: UNHCR
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: NATS
DATELINE: FILE
1992 -1996 SARAJEVO
1. Pan right, cemetery
2. Tilt up, from Holiday Inn sign to building
3. Med shot, destroyed building
4. Pan right, from little girl holding her doll to the city of Sarajevo
5. Med shot, people getting in bus
6. Wise shot, Sarajevo
7. Traveling shot on snipper avenue
8. Traveling shot of the library
9. Various shots, Sarajevo
10. Wide shot, plane landing in Sarajevo airport
11. Various shots, goods being uploaded into trucks
The siege of Sarajevo began 20 years ago this week (6 Apr 1992). Lasting nearly four years, it became one of the most dramatic and emblematic events of the violent breakup of the former Yugoslavia.
The conflict left an estimated 200,000 people dead and some 2.7 million refugees and internally displaced - the largest displacement in Europe since the Second World War.
The siege brought suffering and misery to some 400,000 inhabitants of the Bosnian capital at the time. Constantly shelled and sniped, people were cut off from food, medicine, water and electricity.
Thousands of civilians were killed and wounded. Sarajevo witnessed every conceivable human rights violation or abuse - ranging from ethnic cleansing and rape to mass executions and starvation.
For the first time, UNHCR was operating within a raging conflict, assisting both the war-affected and displaced populations. The humanitarian operation in Sarajevo and in Bosnia and Herzegovina also faced some of the most complex issues - the sheer scale of the crisis, the displacement of people as an objective as opposed to being a consequence of the war. There were also deliberate and blatant attacks on humanitarian principles, including systematic denial of humanitarian access.
Between 3 July 1992 and 9 January 1996, UNHCR coordinated what became the lifeline for Sarajevo and the longest-running humanitarian airlift in history, surpassing the 1948–49 Berlin airlift. In total, some 160,000 tonnes of food, medicines and other goods were delivered to Sarajevo in over 12,000 flights. The airlift also evacuated more than 1,100 civilians in need of urgent medical care. More than 20 countries participated in this effort.
Overall, between 1992 and 1995, UNHCR coordinated a massive logistical operation in which some 950,000 tons of humanitarian relief supplies were delivered to various destinations in Bosnia and Herzegovina. UNHCR’s lead agency role involved a wide range of responsibilities.
By the time the war ended, more than half of the 4.4 million people of Bosnia and Herzegovina were displaced. Today, most of an estimated 2.5 million people forced to flee their homes during the 1991-1995 conflict have either returned or locally integrated.
UNHCR has recently welcomed renewed efforts of the governments in the region aimed at speeding housing solutions for 74,000 most vulnerable and needy refugees and displaced.
The joint regional programme on durable solutions for refugees and displaced is the latest initiative to close this displacement chapter in South East Europe For UNHCR, the displacement in the western Balkans is one of the five priority protracted refugee situations worldwide.
In order to support this effort, the international donor conference in Sarajevo is scheduled for 24 April 2012. It is expected to raise more than 500 million Euros needed to find housing solutions for many of the remaining refugees and displaced, IDPs and returnees.
