Bosnian War and Mostar, BiH

During our time in Bosnia, we had the pleasure of taking an excellent walking tour with 47 year resident who fought in defense of Mostar during the Bosnian War (see Sheva Walking Tour below). We also attended the "Museum Of War And Genocide Victims" in Mostar. In addition to the above I've also used the below linked article and YouTube video to supplement my knowledge. In this post, we will offer pictures and accounts of what we've learned.

https://youtu.be/hHzmzuuGnhU
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/c…

Sheva Walking Tour - Mostar
https://www.mostarfreewalkingtours.com/

To truly understand the conflict we need to go back to the WWII. I will try to do so quickly. Yugoslavia existed prior to the war, but Nazi Germany was able to institute a puppet government lead by the Croatian Ustaše Fascist government. The Ustaše performed genocide and ethnic cleansing on Serb Orthodox and Jewish in Yugoslavia. It has also been stated that the Serbs also did ethnic cleansing against Croats and Muslims during this time. This government was eventually overthrown by Slav freedom fighting "Partisans" led by Josip Broz Tito. After the war, Yugoslavia was reestablished and Tito was made "President for life." He held the country together with a message of Slav Brotherhood until his death in 1980. Despite the years of prosperity that Yugoslavia enjoyed, the sins of WWII were not forgotten.

After Tito's death, economic troubles ensued and local elections of the republics of Yugoslavia started to vote for independence centered along Ethnic lines. First with Slovenia, and then Macedonia. Serbs gained power of the previous Yugoslavia government and then Croatia voted for independence along it's traditional borders. Serbia attempted to hold Yugoslavia together and attacked Croatia. There was also fear of more ethnic cleansing of Croatian Serbs.

At this point, Bosnia and Herzegovina was a previously existing republic inside of Yugoslavia, but unlike the other republics, was not ethnically defined. The territory was largely half Croat, and half Serb, but also contained a strong Bosnian Muslim population (called the Bosniacs). Please see the below map for a better picture.

https://qr.ae/pvejvX

Croatia and Serbia seemed to have gone into a land grab mode and attempted to secure land of Bosnia and Herzegovina as part of their new nations. Attempts were made to divide BiH (the preferred abbreviation as "i" is Bosnian for "and") peacefully. However, because Bosniacs were not part of ethnically part of Croatia or Serbia this made things difficult. Both Serbia and Croatia invaded and pushed to create pure ethnic territory. BiH was caught in the middle.

Mostar was of military significance, because of it's place on the Neretva river and the well known "Big Bridge" (today known as the "Old Bridge"). Both sides pushed in from the East and West and local Croat and Bosniac force attempted to defend the city and civilians. Most took shelter in the basements of large apartment buildings. Most notably a large one on Bulevar Street along the West bank. Croatian snipers shot at any targets that attempted to cross the street. Even today large sections of the building are still littered with bullet holes.

During the conflict the historic old Mostar bridge was destroyed by Serb forces looking to solidify their control over the east bank. The bridge was then rebuilt in 2004 with UNESCO assistance. It was done so with pains taking process to use the same processes of the original bridge.

Today Mostar is beautiful, but still contains ruins of the war. Some building have still not been restored or rebuilt. They stand as constant reminders of the atrocities and reflects the tensions that still exist today. Even now, Serbs, Croats and Bosniacs can attend the same schools, but are taught different History classes from their peers.

There is a lot I'm leaving out there. The culturalsurvival.org article I linked above seems to be very complete and a good source.Okumaya devam et