Siege of Sarajevo 1992
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Year | 1992 | Wikidata P580 (start time) |
|---|---|---|
| Era | Post-1945 (1946 onwards) | derived from year |
| Location | Bosnia and Herzegovina | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | War in Bosnia and Herzegovina | Wikidata P361 |
| Coordinates | 43.8475, 18.3564 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The siege of Sarajevo (Serbo-Croatian: Опсада Сарајева, Opsada Sarajeva) was a prolonged military blockade of Sarajevo, the capital of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, during the ethnically charged Bosnian War. The city was initially besieged by the Yugoslav People's Army, before they were replaced by elements of the newly-formed Army of Republika Srpska. Lasting from 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996 (1,425 days), the siege was three times longer than the Battle of Stalingrad and more than a year longer than the siege of Leningrad, making it the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare.
When Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia after the 1992 Bosnian independence referendum, the Bosnian Serbs—whose strategic goal was to create a new Bosnian Serb state of Republika Srpska (RS) that would include Bosniak-majority areas—encircled Sarajevo with an initial siege force of 13,000 stationed in the surrounding hills. From there they blockaded the city, and assaulted it with artillery, tanks, and small arms including snipers, dropping at least 500,000 bombs.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Siege of Sarajevo (revision 1378607795), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
Nearby battles
- Battle of Žuč 1992 · 4 km
- Siege of Sarajevo 1996 · 4 km
- Battle of Vrbanja Bridge 1995 · 4 km
- Sarajevo Operation 1945 · 5 km
- 1992 Yugoslav People's Army column incident in Sarajevo 1992 · 5 km
- Siege of Rogatica (1941) 1941 · 52 km
Other battles of the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina
- 1992 Yugoslav People's Army column incident in Sarajevo 1992
- 1992 Yugoslav People's Army column incident in Tuzla 1992
- Battle of Kupres (1992) 1992
- Doboj ethnic cleansing 1992
- Siege of Bihać (1992–1995) 1992
- Siege of Goražde 1992
- Siege of Mostar 1992
- Kravica attack (1993) 1993
- Battle of Kupres (1994) 1994
- Operation Bøllebank 1994
All 17 battles of the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina →
Browse more: battles in Bosnia and Herzegovina · Europe · Post-1945 battles