Siege of Sarajevo - Early Fighting For The City

Early Fighting For The City

In the months leading up to the war, JNA forces in the region began to mobilize in the hills surrounding Sarajevo. Artillery, together with other ordnance and equipment that would prove key in the coming siege of the city, was deployed at this time. In April 1992, the Bosnian government under President Alija Izetbegović demanded that the government of Yugoslavia remove these forces. Slobodan Milošević, the president of Serbia, agreed only to withdraw individuals who originated from outside Bosnia's borders, an insignificant number. JNA soldiers who were ethnic Serbs from Bosnia were transferred to the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) under the command of General Ratko Mladić, with the VRS having rescinded its allegiance to Bosnia a few days after Bosnia seceded from Yugoslavia.

On 2 May 1992, Bosnian Serb forces established a total blockade of the city. They blocked the major access roads, cutting supplies of food and medicine, and also cut off the city's utilities (e.g., water, electricity and heating). Although they possessed superior weaponry they were greatly outnumbered by ARBiH soldiers who were defending the city. After numerous JNA armored columns failed to take the city, the Serbs began to concentrate their efforts on weakening it by using continual bombardment from at least 200 reinforced positions and bunkers in the surrounding hills.

On 3 May 1992, members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) attacked a convoy of withdrawing Yugoslav National Army (JNA) soldiers on Dobrovoljačka Street in Sarajevo, killing 6 and wounding many more. The attack is thought to have been in retaliation for the arrest of Bosnia's Muslim President Alija Izetbegović, who was detained at Sarajevo Airport by Yugoslav police the previous day.

On 30 August 1992, an artillery shell crashed into a crowded marketplace on the western edge of Sarajevo. The resulting explosion killed 15 people and wounded 100 others. After the attack, foreign observers asserted that Bosnian Muslim troops had deliberately fired artillery against areas populated by their own civilians in an effort to draw international condemnation of the Serbs and foreign support.

On 8 January 1993, Hakija Turajlić, the Deputy Prime Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was assassinated by a Bosnian Serb soldier. Turajlić, who had gone to Sarajevo airport to greet a Turkish delegation, was returning to the city in a United Nations armored vehicle that had taken him there when a force of two tanks and 40-50 Bosnian Serb soldiers blocked the road and accused the three French soldiers manning the vehicle of transporting "Turkish mujahedeen". In the shooting, six of the seven bullets fired at Turajlić struck him in the chest and arms and he was killed instantly. A Bosnian Serb soldier, Goran Vasić, was eventually charged with Turajlić's murder but was ultimately acquitted of that charge in 2002.