Question: where did the longest siege of the civil war take place

title: Siege of Sarajevo
text: The structural and property damage in Sarajevo as a result of the siege included specifically protected targets such as hospitals and medical complexes , medical facilities ( including ambulances ) and medical personnel , as well as cultural property , such as the manuscript collection of the Oriental Institute in Sarajevo , one of the richest collections of Oriental manuscripts in the world . For foreigners , an event that defined the besiegers ' cultural objectives occurred during the night of 25 August 1992 . This was the bombardment -- with incendiary shells -- that resulted in the total destruction of the irreplaceable National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina , the central repository of Bosnian written culture and a major cultural center for all the Balkans . Among the losses were about 700 manuscripts and incunabula , and a unique collection of Bosnian serial publications , some from the middle of the 19th - century Bosnian cultural revival . Libraries all over the world cooperated afterwards to restore some of the lost heritage , through donations and e-texts , rebuilding the Library in cyberspace . Vedran