This is Christiane Amanpour in the 1990s raging War in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Amanpour was the strongest voice of the voiceless Bosnians under four-year long attack by Bosnian Serbs and the Serbian government. Aware of the international community's persistent inaction, the official term of "fair reporting" had been reinvented by this brave CNN reporter.

Thirty years later, Amanpour walked the streets of Sarajevo, the very city she, as a journalist, put in the public eye by risking her own life, never stepping down and asking tough questions when they needed to be asked.

Renowned CNN reporter arrived in Sarajevo as a guest of the Sarajevo Film Festival where she attended the screening of the film “Kiss the Future”.
Amanpour is featured in the film which tells the story about Sarajevo under the siege, its underground music community and a Sarajevo satellite links with the Irish band U2 during the darkest times. The film that was produced by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck opened this year's festival edition.

Today, Christiane Amanpour is the Honorary Citizen of Sarajevo.

Amanpour said to Bosnian media that as a young reporter she had to learn how to report about the events in Bosnia and to show to the international community that this was not just a civil war emphasizing the importance of separating the victims from the aggressors. Her accounts with Bosnian Serb general, now convicted war criminal for genocide and crimes against humanity, Ratko Mladić, has gone down in history of one of the chilling ever made by a war correspondent.

In the context of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, she warned that Bosnian lessons must not be forgotten. The phenomenon of fake news and propaganda conducted by the Serbian side in the 90s is exactly what has been Putin's media narrative in his invasion on Ukraine.

Ika Ferrer Gotić, N1, CNN's official news affiliate in the Western Balkans reporting.