Sarajevo Burning

By the time the sun rises and the last throes of nightfall are destroyed by its rays, we are all exhausted.

When you are placed on night duty, sleep evades you. You watch the stars twinkle and the smoke rise in thick, suffocating tendrils above the Sarajevo skyline. It is a stark contrast; the acrid inky-black against the moonlit outlines of the high-rises, the hills in the near distance hiding legions of snipers ready to pull the trigger at a second’s notice. You sit and listen to the telltale chatter of gunfire and silently thank whatever deity you pray to that it is not your own men that are engaged in the bloody battles that will stain the streets for weeks afterwards. It is not your own men who are left to the darkness, the rattle of one last breath ripping through them like a knife. It is not the families of good friends who have to bury a father, a son, a brother or a husband. You do not have to watch another widow crumple into a hysterical mess when the news is delivered. We live for another day, not that it matters when men besiege the city you are defending with expensive weapons and little to lose.

The men that have come to relieve us of our duty have brought bottles of water. I take one, thankful for the icy cold against my hands. It has turned into a tradition, handing over the safety of the city to another group of men who are equally as unprepared for war as we are. We have an unspoken bond, a mutual goal to fight towards. We look out for one another. The bond between soldiers is worth as much, if not more than any blood tie.

“How many casualties?” I ask the nearest replacement, taking a large swig from the bottle. Swirling the water around my mouth, I feel the grit from the evening dislodge itself from my gums before spitting it on the ground. I have to resist the urge to drink the entire bottle in one gulp — it is a long journey home and provisions are scarce.

“Four, at first count,” he grunts in reply, scowling. “The bastards are ruthless.”

I almost laugh at how vulgar, yet true his words are. They strike when we feel safe, the Serbs, taking everything away in a few seconds of emotionless brutality. Man, woman or child, they do not care. They simply fight for their country and for Milošević, paying little attention to whose brains they are painting across the streets. In retaliation, we have been forced to be just as brutal as they are, fighting them tooth-and-nail to stay alive. Each battle is a bitter fight for a victor who never really wins. Nobody ever wins. We only survive.

I sling my gun over my left shoulder, keeping it close. Our fight may be over for the evening, but travelling during the day can be just as dangerous as fighting when the sun goes down. Our country has little in the way of resources, and our transport back into the city is battle-worn and scarred. The flimsy metal is little protection against the wayward bullets that the snipers send our way, and the speeds that the truck reaches is not enough to evade the enemy soldiers who try to pursue us on foot. We have to be prepared for a bloodbath at any point of the day. War waits for no one, especially not those who goad her into showing her violent hand. And goad her Yugoslavia did, tempting her with thoughts of civil unrest and ethnic battles, tempting her until she threw her cards down across the various republics cowering under Milošević’s bitter rule.

Provisions are few and far between in the city, with the main strongholds held under Serbian rule and the routes in and out of the city a deathtrap for those who dare travel along those dusty roads. Despite this, I still find myself lighting up another cigarette as I board the truck, the butt of the Zastava M84 hanging on my shoulder bouncing uneasily off of the backs of my knees. Cigarettes are one of the few luxuries that are afforded to soldiers — they believe we need something to keep us going, and the sweet embrace of nicotine certainly does that job.

“The city is quiet this morning,” the driver calls over his shoulders as we seat ourselves on the hard benches, shoulder-to-shoulder and thoroughly uncomfortable. “The Srpska kopilad have retreated for now.”

I breathe in a silent sigh of relief. I wish to see no more fighting today. All I want, with every fibre in my body, is to sit in my own home and rest my gaze once again upon my family.