Empty Hotel, near Sarajevo,1992.
An empty hotel, straight out of a horror film. A big room, two beds for the three of us. Two photographers, one writer. Night had fallen and this was my first experience in night combat. They fought the whole night. Tanks were moving near the hotel, shells exploding. The eye closes just to be opened the next minute by another near miss.
The next day the hotel was full of fighters carrying kalis (AK-47s). The tchetniks, their barracks being just behind the hotel, were having breakfast.
Discussions, jokes (rolling the wrong way), and all this propaganda which goes down.., history etc…
There is no way to describe Sarajevo, except chaos, madness with a few moments of respite. Horror, tension, fear and death. Men, women, children, interned in a mouse trap. No way out. As a journalist one must not take sides, But I cannot help to take and have feeling with the people of Sarajevo. Whether they be Muslims, Serbs or Croats. They have nothing, and what is left is being destroyed. Not only in Sarajevo, but also in other parts of Bosnia Herzegovina. How can you treat people like that?
The few days that I spent in Sarajevo opened my eyes to human savagery, but also to the fraternity, warmth and being of these people under siege.
Sarajevo 1992