April 5, 1992, the Siege of Sarajevo begins. The longest siege of a capital city in modern history. It would not be fully lifted until February 29, 1996; 1,425 days of death, terror, and defiance. The machinations of those who would destroy it persist — but Sarajevo endures. 
These lockdowns have often reminded me of the last few weeks before the siege began. Long hrs indoors, men in masks on the streets, increasingly ominous press conferences, family and friends cycling through denial, fear, depression. A terrible, anxious stillness to it all.
The war in Croatia was a yr old by April 92; the first rounds of ethnic cleansing by Serb nationalist militias in east Bosnia already underway. That Milosevic’s death squads turned to Sarajevo was not a surprise. But the human mind struggles to rationalize its own doom.
Victims of atrocities often experience their trauma as a blur of episodic, scattered events. But it’s important to remember that Milosevic’s destruction of YUG & the Bosnian Genocide were systemic, planned, organized. They did it according to a blueprint. It was intentional.
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