Nearly 20 years after war, the cityscape of Sarajevo remains riddled with bullet holes and shell craters in facades and pavement. These are the scars of Sarajevo.
Around the globe, there are millions of reported cases of people who are missing or have disappeared. This first issue of BalkanThemes explores how governments and organizations are addressing this problem in the countries of the former Yugoslavia.
For Bosnia and Herzegovina's politicians, the vocabulary of commemorations, victims, the past, and crimes should be replaced by words such as activity (i.e., work) and accountability.
A hundred years have passed since the first bullets were fired near the Latin Bridge. The century-long period saw numerous pits and canyons—and unmarked graves. In them, hundreds of thousands are “resting in peace”. They have names of mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, and brothers—but still, they remain unknown.