SARAJEVO - Everything was a matter of time and place. Would you be there when a sniper took aim on the street while you were fetching water, because the taps were dry and the entire Olympic city of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, had to fill bottles and canisters at a few springs or water tanks. And he would shoot.

Everything was a matter of time and place.

Would you be there when a sniper targeted you while you were going to get bread, which could only be bought at a few places because no stores were open. Would you be there when the sniper pulled the trigger while you were collecting wood in a park to heat yourself in a makeshift stove during freezing winters; while children attended makeshift schools in basements; while you walked to university in a false sense of normality at a time when everything was abnormal.

Bullets and grenades were crashing into homes and you never knew if you would wake up alive after going to bed. Many were killed that way, and others called them the lucky ones, because death found them in their sleep.

Everything was a matter of time and place.

Would you be in the crosshairs while going to the theater, a concert, a book promotion or to watch a film at the newly launched Sarajevo Film Festival.

Walking to university under fire

Yes, that is how it was. Fully aware that they were risking their lives, the citizens of Sarajevo, young and old, walked for kilometers through a besieged city between 1992 and 1995, because public transport did not exist, knowing that they could be