Fly Away Cafe - Where travel is a way of life

Fourth of July in Sarajevo

by Mary Jo Manzanares on April 6th, 2008

Today I have another guest post, from a fellow Seattle-ite and intrepid traveler, Chris Guillebeau.

Chris presents unconventional ideas for Life, Work, and Travel at The Art of Nonconformity. The site also documents his journey to every country in the world over the next five years

I was in Sarajevo last year for July 4th, a national holiday in America. In fact, I’ve been away from the U.S. for the past five Independence Days – once in the small African country of Lesotho, the year before that in Liberia, twice in Western Europe, and one year in China back in 2003 when I first began living abroad. In 2006, I found myself in Southeastern Europe – specifically, in Sarajevo, Bosnia.

It took five flights to get to Sarajevo from Seattle, and by the third one I was pretty tired. As much as I like flying, I think I’ll try to avoid back-to-back overnight flights in the future. I traveled via Atlanta, Newark, Frankfurt, and Ljubljana, Slovenia before arriving in Bosnia more than two days after leaving from Sea-Tac airport.

After sleeping for 12 hours the night of my arrival, I went with a group of other travelers to the war museum outside of the city. From 1992 to 1996, Sarajevo was under siege by the Serbian army. The city was surrounded from every side. Thousands of rounds of mortar fire fell in the city over years of non-stop bombing, killing more than 11,000 people. The bombs were fired indiscriminately, and some landed on hospitals and schools. The mortar rounds left permanent indentations in the ground, which are still visible all over the city. They are known as “Sarajevo roses” due to the distinct pattern they made in the ground.

As the crisis escalated, U.N. peacekeeping forces were deployed. The U.N. reclaimed the airport from the Serbs, but made a number of concessions in the process: 50% of food aid to the Bosnians would be distributed to the Serbian side (mostly soldiers who were directly attacking the civilians in the city), and no one living in Sarajevo would be allowed to leave the city without individual permission.

Unfortunately, the U.N. peacekeepers didn’t provide much peace. The bombing of Sarajevo continued for three more years after the intervention of the international community. Food aid continued, but logistics were so mismanaged that cases of anti-malarial vaccinations arrived in sufficient quantity for every resident of the city… in a region that has never had any cases of malaria. Our guide joked that if malaria ever came to Bosnia, at least the country would be well-prepared.

Because they were surrounded by the Serbian army on all sides, and prevented by the U.N. from going to the airport, the citizens of Sarajevo built an incredible underground tunnel that stretched for more than 800 meters. We were able to see the tunnel and walk in a short section that roughly replicated the journey thousands of people made every day to avoid the bombs.

The next part of this trip took me through southern Croatia, over to Montenegro, and onwards through Albania before arriving in Ohrid, Macedonia a few days’ later.

Photo credit:  personal collection of Chris Guillebeau

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POSTED IN: European Travel, Things to See & Do