Disarmament in Bosnia and Herzegovina 2010 (Swiss Stories 2011, by Steeve Iunker-Gomez) - Swiss Press Award

Edito

Steeve Iunker-Gomez

At the gateway to Europe, Sarajevo remains a veritable powder keg. With more than 67,000 tons of weapons to demilitarize, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina is a real geostrategic issue for its neighbors. The siege of Sarajevo was the longest in the history of modern warfare. From April 5, 1992, to February 29, 1996, Serbian paramilitary troops besieged the capital of the self-proclaimed Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The human and material toll was very high: 11,000 dead, 50,000 wounded, and 329 shell impacts per day. At the end of the Cold War, and its imposing and methodical work of stockpiling weapons and bombs, the scars of war are still just as present. Far more than the impacts of sniper fire on the facades of buildings, it is an inexhaustible stock of bombs and mortars that must be demilitarized, destroyed, and recycled.