Exodus of Sarajevo Serbs

[1] Following Slovenia and Croatia's secession from the Yugoslav Federation in June 1991, the political leaders of the ethnically mixed Bosnia and Herzegovina were divided on the configuration of the state.

Following the referendum, violent skirmishes broke out and Sarajevo was closed off in barricades by Bosnian Serb activists.

[7] The Dayton Agreement finalized the demarcation between the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) and Republika Srpska (RS), the two post-war entities of the country.

[19] According to N. Chakravartty, the ethnic cleansing of Serbs from Croatia during Operation Storm (silently supported by major powers like United States and Germany) set precedent for the exodus of 150,000 terrified suburban Sarajevo Serbs who did not feel that a Muslim-led Bosnian government or the outside world will guarantee their safety.

The leadership of Republika Srpska used the displacement of Serbs from Sarajevo to their advantage by directing the refugees to Brčko, Zvornik, Bratunac and Srebrenica, thereby homogenizing the ethnic demography of the state.

[22] Many were forced to leave under threats and intimidation from Bosnian Serb extremists and there were cases of killings of those who refused to follow orders.

[8] In 1996, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe cited the delay of the establishment of an international police force in Bosnia on the part of NATO as among the factors which contributed to Serbs leaving Sarajevo.

[24] Peter Brock argued that even after the 1996 exodus, the Western media still refused to acknowledge the flight of tens of thousands of Sarajevo Serbs that occurred at the beginning of the Bosnian War in early 1992.