The Digital Journalist
Photo by Roger M. Richards/21mm.us
My wife’s parents, Dino and Mirza, during the siege of Sarajevo, December 1992. Dino is a renaissance man, fluent in several languages, and a very talented painter and musician. Dino was like the mayor of Sarajevo, everywhere we went he was recognized. Mostly because before the war he was the host of a Yugoslav children’s television program and a recording artist. He kept his family together during the war, using his talents as an artist and by working as a translator for the United Nations. Near the war’s end they escaped from besieged Sarajevo with their dog, Luna, through the famous tunnel under the airport, carrying all their possessions in two cloth sacks. In the photo behind Dino’s shoulder at left is the infamous Velipekara, or big bakery, where many people died when the Serbs would fire mortar and artillery shells at Sarajevans lined up for bread.