Siege Of Sarajevo After Ratko Mladic: Then And Now Pictures Show Bosnian City's Transformation

Picturing Sarajevo's Recovery: The City's Transformation

From amongst the bullet-scarred ruins, these photos show how Sarajevo has rebuilt itself since it was torn apart by civil war.

British refugee worker Jim Marshall, 42, from East Kilbride in Scotland, documented the daily destruction during the bloody siege of Sarajevo 15 years ago.

He decided to stay in the city to help its desperate residents. Now he has revisited the ruins of 1996 to show how the city has transformed itself.

His pictures show how the hard work of survivors of Europe's worst conflict since World War Two have turned what was once a hellish war zone into a smart European metropolis.

A part time photographer, Jim risked his life to help the Bosnian people at the height of the devastation of the Yugoslav conflict.

“The photographs that I took in the spring of 1996 capture the physical devastation wrought by four years of siege,” he said.

“They signify the savagery of those who besieged the city and the courage of those who lived in the ruins.

“Living there was dangerous. During my time in the war I was beaten, shot through the leg and was seated in a vehicle hit by an anti-aircraft round.

“Once I was trapped for 20 minutes in a small Sarajevo street in which I had to run from doorway to doorway to escape from sniper fire.”

Jim’s personal love affair with the traumatised city began in 1994, when he was just 24. Working under siege during the heart of the conflict, he helped the city’s refugees survive the terror of daily life. Often under fire himself, Jim was determined to document the damage to the city with his camera.

From 1992 to 1995 Sarajevo’s population of just over 500,000 people suffered shelling, tank fire and sniper attacks by 18,000 Serbian soldiers when they tried to break away from Yugoslavia.

More than 11,000 people lost their lives, and large parts of the city were destroyed.

“The city during the siege was an indescribably surreal place,” said Jim.

“It really was a living nightmare - hundreds and even thousands of shells would land within the besieged areas of the city in a single day. The sniping would be incessant.

“Literally nowhere in the city was safe from the constant assault.

“Civilians were killed or injured on their balconies, in their beds, on buses, in hospital wards, at funerals and, especially, whilst running or cycling through the streets.”

Eventually Sarajevo found peace in 1996 after US-led NATO airstrikes devastated Serbian forces, who were forced to withdraw. Jim continued to live in the city in the aftermath of war and now considers himself a local.

Sarajevo, now the capital of the new state of Bosnia-Herzegovina, has recovered thanks to the pain-staking reconstruction effort of survivors.

“The city is virtually unrecognisable as the same city photographed in 1996,” said Jim.

“There is little left in the city of the severe destruction it suffered during the siege.

“Only pockmarks on the walls of the buildings and shell markings on the roads, known as Sarajevo roses, remain.

“Otherwise the burned out apartment blocks, offices, hospitals, schools and government buildings have been either rebuilt or in some cases completely removed.

“Recent images of the new Sarajevo embody life, hope and the triumph of the human spirit.”

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