Bosnian Serb news broadcasts often show Arabic documents and identity cards that the Serbs say they have taken from dead Bosnian soldiers. The very fiber of the city has changed, with more than half its prewar population of 450,000 gone. Of the 280,000 who are here now, an estimated 100,000 came as refugees from villages taken over by the Serbs. Men and boys from the hinterlands watch their goats and sheep graze on the grassy divides between the streets and in the parks. Families unaccustomed to urban life toss food scraps from the windows.
Women do the laundry in the canals.
A small number of women now wear Islamic head coverings, something that was unseen in Sarajevo before the war. Farmers and laborers from the countryside have taken over apartments abandoned by the doctors, lawyers, teachers, musicians, and business owners who fled. He said Bosnian Serb troops drove his family from the suburb of Ilidza three years ago. They lost everything and settled in the building on the edge of the city. His two sons now fight on the front lines around Sarajevo.