Sarajevo was a sophisticated city at the heart of Europe - a multi-ethnic symbol of how people could and did live together in peace. No one believed that war would come to Sarajevo. But in April 1992 the culmination of many months of conflict between the two main political parties in Bosnia came to a fatal head. Serbian troops encircled the city from the hills above it and mortaring and sniping began. Sarajevo a symbol of stability became Sarajevo a city under siege. What followed for the next three and a half years was a bloody urban war of aggression. Inside the city people tried to go on living, tried to believe that someone outside was watching and would come and help. Very quickly the city's water and electricity supplies were cut. The shops were looted as hunger set in and by the time winter hit the city had been shorn of all its trees in the desperate search for fuel.
Meanwhile horrifying acts of violence were committed on the city's streets. Women queuing for bread were slaughtered in a market square, a maternity hospital was shelled and two lovers, one Bosnian, one Serb were shot dead on a bridge. And then there was the strangling of the civic spirit and culture. Libraries were attacked and ancient bridges ruined.
But those people who survived the siege are testament to an extraordinary defiance and courage which was demonstrated daily. People went to their place of work even when there was no work just to show that the building belonged to them, women wore make-up to go out because that was what they had always done and musicians played their instruments in the city's centre while bullets shot past their heads. They would not be silenced.
