Monday, May 14, 2012

Sarajevo Roses...

(image: google)

Mortar rounds landing on concrete create a unique fragmentation pattern that looks almost floral. During the Bosnian War between April 1992 and December 1995 Sarajevo was the central conflict zone and suffered thousands of shell explosions.  It's been estimated that more than 300 shell rounds were fired into the city daily. Now the marked concrete patterns are a unique feature to the city.

*According to the International Commitee of the Red Cross data, during the war 200,000  
 people were killed, 12,000 of them children, up to 50,000 women were raped, and  
 2.2 million were displaced. It was ethnic cleansing and genocide.

2 comments:

Az said...

The irony is that I just came into contact with a blogger who survived the Bosnian war. Sadly, her father didn't. She now lives in Australia: http://pretzel-thief.blogspot.com/2012/05/papa-can-you-hear-me.html

desert demons said...

Hi Az, It's sad how short our memories are and so the news moves onto new wars and new celebrity drama, those who are no longer 'hot' news are forced to pick up the pieces of their broken lives. In Bosnia as in most generations following war the youth are at a massive disadvantage with many being born when their mothers were rapes by Serb soldiers. These teenagers now do not know their fathers and many were abandoned because their mothers could not bear to face the memory of what happened to them on a daily basis.