On this day 31 years ago started the siege of Sarajevo - the longest siege of a city in the modern history of warfare, which lasted 44 months. It ended on February 29, 1996.

During the siege, an average of 329 shells fell on Sarajevo per day. There is a specific record that the city hold, when a total of 3,777 shells were fired on Sarajevo in one day, which happened on July 22, 1993.

The shells caused enormous damage, with the most serious damage inflicted to civil, cultural and religious buildings. People were killed, civil, cultural, religious buildings and even hospitals were demolished.

One of the most significant example of the suffering in this period is the massacre at the open market ‘Markale’, in February 1994, when shells fired from the enemy positions hit a crowd of people and killed 68 Sarajevans,

During the siege of Sarajevo, nearly 12,000 people were killed, among them more than 1,500 children, and 50,000 people were lightly or seriously wounded.