The Serb Flight from Sarajevo: Dayton's First Failure
The Serb Flight from Sarajevo: Dayton's First Failure

Summary/Abstract: On 20 March 1996, exactly 90 days after the Dayton Agreement took effect, Bosnia's interior minister planted his country's delicate white and blue lily flag atop a ruined tower overlooking Sarajevo. The event marked the transfer to Bosnian control of Grbavica, the last of six Sarajevo districts seized by the Serbs at the beginning of the war. From Grbavica, literally only a stone's throw across the narrow Mlijecka River from Sarajevo's center, Serb gunmen had turned the city's main streets into "snipers' alley," while from the hills above Grbavica, Serb artillerists had had a clear field of fire on the city spread helplessly below. Now, jubilant Sarajevans surged through Grbavica's shattered streets, some heading for apartments from which they had been expelled at the beginning of the war almost four years ago, and others simply reveling in their ability to walk freely through what had been until recently a zone of death. For Sarajevo, reclaiming Grbavica meant that the long nightmare of siege was finally and truly over. [...]

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