CNN's Christiane Amanpour spoke to Bosnian war correspondent Aida Cerkez, who was reporting from the besieged Sarajevo during the 1992-95 war. She recalled of the wartime period in Bosnia and commented on the war raging in Ukraine now.

Amanpour pointed out the similarities between what was happening in Bosnia in the early 1990s and now 30 years later in Ukraine. “The women, the children, the civilian infrastructure, the defenders….”

Answering to Amanpour's remark that just like the Bosnians never believed that the Serbs would launch a war on them, the Ukrainians neither believed the Russians would launch this war and asked “what is it about not believing the worst,” Cerkez replied:

“I think you always think that this is going to happen to someone else but not to me.”

She quoted her mother who used to say as she watched the news on TV on the war in Slovenia: “Thank God it is not here.”

Then she repeated the same when the war started in the neighbouring Croatia, but also after it reached parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Even when the shelling started just across the street, in Sarajevo, her mother kept saying: “Thank God it's not here.”

“That's when I realised, I guess it is a defence mechanism. You just don't want to believe. The hope dies last. The whole world saw what's going to happen in Ukraine, but the Ukrainians… you just can't comprehend it. Just like Sarajevans,” she said.

“You always think this is going to happen to someone else, but not to me,” says Aida Cerkez, who reported on, and survived, the siege of Sarajevo. Her mother always said “thank God it’s not here – & then at some point the shelling started just across the street… Hope dies last.” pic.twitter.com/kHPSWJ0wDy

— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) March 9, 2022

Cerkez also read a part of her recently published letter to the Ukrainians:

“Bad times are ahead of you, my friends. But weapons are being sent so you can defend yourself and the values you stand for. We Bosnians fought back then for the same values, but the world imposed an arms embargo on us. It did not understand what the fight was about in Sarajevo. Thank God, it understands now in Kyiv.”