Analysis Archives

As efforts continue to finally make Sarajevo landmine-free this year, Bosnia’s demining experts explain how they deal with facing death or injury every day – and why they dedicate their lives to such a dangerous job. It’s 16 minutes past midday on Christmas Eve, and Sead Vrana sends me a text on Viber, seeking to […]

Munib Ahmetspahic expressed regret for having joined the Islamic State in Syria. A Court declared him “deradicalised”, but experts say his case provides few real lessons for the fight against religious radicalism. Standing in a Bosnian courtroom in April last year, Munib Ahmetspahic repented. “How naïve we were,” he said. The war in Syria had […]

Salko Hondo, a veteran photojournalist for Oslobodjenje, the Sarajevo-based newspaper that courageously kept on publishing throughout the three-and-a-half-year siege of the city, went on his final assignment on July 16, 1992. Hondo had been deployed to take pictures of people queueing for water near the marketplace in the Ciglane neighbourhood when a projectile exploded close […]

The murder 20 years ago of notorious paramilitary chief Zeljko Raznatovic, alias Arkan, meant he never stood trial for war crimes - and two decades later, only one member of his much-feared Tigers unit has ever been prosecuted.

Two courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina have rejected pleas to ban 16 Serb nationalist Chetnik associations for allegedly inciting ethnic hatred, while three more courts are still considering similar requests. Courts in the towns of Doboj and Sokolac have rejected requests to ban 16 associations whose titles contain the words ‘Chetnik Movement’ or ‘Ravna Gora […]

Some of the war criminals from the 1990s conflicts who admitted their guilt in court spoke to BIRN about why they confessed - although some say now that they only expressed remorse to get shorter sentences.

As the migrant smuggling business booms in Bosnia, the number of people convicted of this crime rose in 2019 compared to the year before.

The shelling of a tram full of passengers in January 1996 was one of the last major attacks of the siege of Sarajevo, after the peace deal ending the Bosnian war was signed, but the perpetrators have never been caught.

The Belgrade trial of Bosnian Serb ex-fighters for the 1993 abduction and murder of passengers from a train in Strpci in Bosnia has seen witnesses change their stories to blame a man who has already been convicted. The first year of the trial in Belgrade for the abduction and killing of 20 passengers from a […]

Over the past four years, more than two million euros have been dedicated to building memorials honouring military and civilian casualties of the Bosnian war - but most only commemorate victims from the dominant ethnic group in each area.

Analysis

For Bosnia’s Landmine Clearers, Hope is Stronger than Fear

In Bosnia’s First ‘Deradicalised’ Syria Fighter, Limited Lessons

Last Despatches: Photographer Who Captured Life and Death in Sarajevo

Arkan’s ‘Tigers’ Unpunished 20 Years after Leader’s Death

Two Bosnian Courts Reject Ban on Serb Chetnik Associations

Culture of Denial: Why So Few War Criminals Feel Guilty

Bosnia’s Courts Convict More Migrant Smugglers

Blood and Broken Glass: Remembering the Sarajevo Tram Attack

Bosnian Train Massacre Trial: Witnesses Find Convenient Scapegoat

Bosnia Spends €2 Million on ‘Divisive’ War Memorials

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