The forgotten victims of Bosnia’s War: Haunting Photos of the Children Affected by the Genocide

The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina has had a significant impact on civilians. The effect of modern warfare on children is little understood. The vast majority had experienced loss, separation from family, close interaction with war and fighting, and terrible deprivation. Children from Sarajevo had the highest prevalence and severity of experiences than other regions, with no statistically significant relationship between gender, wealth, or age. A more substantial number of symptoms occurred in older children and came from a large city and those who witnessed death, injury, or torture within the nuclear family.

UNICEF reported that between 65,000 and 80,000 children in Sarajevo had been directly shot at by snipers. Many of the children also witnessed someone getting killed, including members of their family. The ICRC reported that more than 200,000 people were killed, 12,000 of whom were children. In addition, the stories of the children conceived from wartime rape have remained mostly untold due to the stigma associated with rape victims and because most of the children were not told their origins. During the Bosnian war, it is estimated that enemy soldiers raped between 25,000 and 50,000 women and girls. A few rapes were also committed by foreign soldiers serving with the United Nations peacekeeping forces in Bosnia. A memorial with the names of 521 children killed during the Siege of Sarajevo was unveiled on 9 May 2010.

Here below are some horrible photos that depict how the children were affected by the war.

#1 Seven-year-old Nermin Divovic lies mortally wounded in a pool of blood as unidentified American and British U.N. firefighters arrive to assist after he was shot in the head in Sarajevo Friday, November 18, 1994.

The boy was shot and killed by a sniper firing from an apartment building into the Sarajevo city center, along Sarajevo's notorious Sniper Alley. The U.N. firefighters were at his side almost immediately, but the boy died outright.

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#2 Four-year-old Jasmin Hreljic is being treated at Sarajevo’s children’s hospital for burns suffered to his face when a kerosene lamp exploded.

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#3 Amputee children, wounded during the siege of Sarajevo, photographed in a Sarajevo hospital while they wait to be evacuated to a sympathetic European country.

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#4 A group of adults watches two Bosnian boys collect machine gun cartridge casings in the streets of Sarajevo while the city is besieged.

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#5 Mirza Mangajic, a 10-year-old Muslim boy, survives in Sarajevo’s Old Town quarter with his grandmother. He has no news of his parents and sisters.

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#6 A poorly nourished and wounded Bosnian child lies on a makeshift hospital bed waiting for his evacuation from Srebrenica, 1993.

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#7 A 6-year-old child in the hospital injured from the bombing, 1994.

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#8 Young children buying bread in Sarajevo, 1994.

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#9 A traumatised child and his grandmother outside their devastated shell damaged apartment block.

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#10 A child lies in a hospital bed December 1, 1994 in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

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#11 Muslim refugee children swing on a rope swing amongst the rubble in a roofless building.

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#12 A Muslim grandfather holds his exhausted, crying granddaughters on his lap after a long, frightening journey on foot to a United Nations refugee camp at Kladanj.

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#13 A Muslim mother carries her child at a refugee camp set up at Tuzla airport.

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#14 Child victims of war – Sanja, 7, Serbian Orthodox, and Aladdin, 4, Muslim, each lost a leg during the siege of the Bihac enclave.

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#15 Children injured in the Yugoslav war moving along the corridors of Kosevo Hospital in Sarajevo.

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#16 A boy has his eyes measured The Blind School Sarajevo, is the only centre in Bosnia for children and young adults.

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#17 Sheltering from a heavy mortar bombardment, 67 year old Antonia Arapovic, hugs her neighbour’s terrified child in the darkness of a underground cellar in Sarajevo.

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#18 Boys dressed in the uniform of Bosnian army fighters play with a real pistol

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#19 A young Bosnian boy and his mother mourning their father and husband, respectively, at his grave.

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#20 Mirza Mangajic, a 10-year-old Muslim boy, lays his head in his grandmother’s lap as he prays with her.

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#21 Mirza Mangajic, a 10-year-old Muslim boy, survives in Sarajevo’s Old Town quarter with his grandmother, showing a scar on his belly he received from a grenade explosion.

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#22 A young girl named Irma, injured in Sarajevo, waits to be evacuated to London.

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#23 A young boy who lost his both legs in the hospital.

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#24 Boys putting up a poster saying ‘Bring the boys back home’ as part of a peace demonstration in Sarajevo, 1994.

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#25 Child victims of war – Aladdin, 4, Muslim, lost a leg during the siege of the Bihac enclave on January 9, 1994.

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#26 A young child lies in bed and plays with toys while recovering from face wounds received during the siege of Sarajevo

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#27 A boy in the area known as Heroes Square, so called because of the extreme dangers of living there during the war.

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#28 A Muslim grandmother hugs her young grandchildren at a refugee centre set up near Tuzla for people fleeing the Srebrenica massacre.

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#29 A father’s hands press against the window of a bus carrying his tearful son and wife to safety from the besieged city of Sarajevo during the Bosnian War on November 10, 1992

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#30 A Bosnian man cradles his child as they and others run past one of the worst spots for snipers that pedestrians have to pass in Sarajevo, on April 11, 1993.

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#31 Children look up at fighter jets enforcing the no-fly-zone over Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina, on May 12, 1993.

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#32 Evacuees form Srebrenica look out from a U.N. truck in Medgas, Bosnia, north of Sarajevo, as a U.N. truck convoy carrying people from the besieged Bosnian town made its way to Tuzla, March 20, 1993.

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#33 Evacuees from the besieged Muslim enclave of Srebrenica, packed on a truck en route to Tuzla, pass through Tojsici, March 29, 1993.

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#34 A nurse treats a child refugee from Srebrenica with ointment against measles at the refugee camp in Lukavac, Bosnia, March 23, 1993.

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#35 Bosnian refugee children from Srebrenica, carry loaves of bread, which they received from the United Nations at the refugee camp at Tuzla airport, July 19, 1995.

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#36 Refugees waiting to be able to enter to Croatia.

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#37 The television room in the psychiatric clinic.

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#38 At Prizren hospital, a young boy had to have his foot amputated after stepping on a land-mine.

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