Watching Ukraine, Bosnians relive the trauma of their war

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — News reports from Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities under unrelenting bombardment by the Russian military have been triggering painful memories among the survivors of the 1990s siege of Bosnian capital Sarajevo.

And yet, many have been spending hours on end glued to their television screens since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.

“Not so long ago, we were them,” said Amra Muftic who survived the 1992-95 siege, watching news reports showing civilians taking refuge from Russian rocket attacks, shelling and gunfire in basements and subway stations.

“If our experience is anything to go by — and I have a gut feeling that it is — things are about to get much worse” for them, she added.

Bosnian Serb forces laid siege to Sarajevo in the early 1990s, during the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia. About 350,000 people were trapped, for 46 months, in their multiethnic city, subjected to daily shelling and sniper attacks and cut off from regular access to electricity, food, water, medicine and the outside world.

More than 11,000 people were killed during the siege, including over 1,000 children. Countless others were wounded.

“We know how they feel. We survived the longest siege in modern history” said Elma Vukotic, an anesthesiologist, as she and her fellow health care workers stood earlier this week outside their Sarajevo hospital, clad in their medical robes and holding balloons in the blue and yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag — and, coincidentally, also the Bosnian one. Vukotic said their spontaneous show of solidarity was the least they could do for their Ukrainian colleagues.

“All wars are painful, all attacks against civilians abhorrent, but what is happening to Ukrainians right now is especially...