They call them the roses of Sarajevo: scars ripping through the concrete and painted red, marking where an artillery round claimed a life during the longest siege of modern history – a full three-and-a-half years, longer than even the siege of Leningrad. 

From May 1992 until December 1995, an average of 329 shells struck the Bosnian capital each day, while snipers took aim at passers-by from vantage points on the mountains surrounding the city. More than 11,000 lives were lost in the siege, including 1,600 children, a memorial to whom now stands in a park. A closer look reveals some of the lost etched into the memorial are simply listed as NN – babies killed before they even had names.

Sarajevo might have been under siege, but it was not the worst place to be. It was not the concentration camps, where systematic rape, torture and starvation were daily routines, nor the east of the country, where the deadliest massacres took place. Life went on. 

‘For me, war was, in a very strange and paradoxical or morbid way, fun,’ remembered Dzemil Hodzic, who was nine-years-old when the Bosnian war erupted in 1992, when I spoke to him in Sarajevo in October.

‘If we didn’t go to school, it was fun. If we had to hide, it was fun. I’m blessed that I was not a refugee, so my house was intact. None of my friends were killed during the war.’

His brother Amel was four years older.

‘Because he was older, he was in charge of the house when my parents were away,’ he reminisced. ‘So he was like a second father, like a boss. If some errands had to be done, I was the one doing it because he was giving the orders.’

On 3 May 1995, Dzemil’s mother, a nurse, returned from her night shift and served the boys their breakfast: scrambled eggs with milk and a pair of chocolates. ‘We shared the two chocolates, and I have the wrappers: I kept them as a memory,’ he continued. ‘I still remember the taste of those chocolates, funnily enough. And we went outside to play.’

There were ten or fifteen kids outside. Dzemil joined his friends to play marbles, while Amel and the older kids played tennis. It was a quiet, sunny Wednesday afternoon when suddenly, shots rang out. Dzemil saw his brother........

© The Spectator