" Faint not nor grieve,for ye will overcome them if ye
are (indeed) believers."
(Surah Al-e-Imran)
(Ayah 139)
LOCATION
Country in central Europe, bounded north west by Croatia, east by the Yuogoslovian republic of Serbia and south east by the Yugoslavian republic of montenegro.
HISTORY
Once the Roman province of illyria, the area enjoyed brief periods of independence in medieval times; it emerged as an independent state in the 1180s . It was ruled by the ottoman empire from 1463, although the northern part was annexed to Hunary until 1526. Austria-Hungary took over its administration 1878 and finally annexed it 1908. In 1918 it was incorporated in the future Yugoslavia, and in 1929 divided b/w four Yugoslavian regions . it came under Nazi German rule 1941. During World War II around 12,00 of 14,00 Bosnian Jews were killed, and some one million Yugoslavs died. Bosnia-Herzegovina, kept undivided because of its ethnic and religious compound of Serbs (Orthodox Christians),Croats(Catholic Christians) and Serbo-Croatian-speaking Slavs (Muslims), became a republic within th Yugoslav Socialist Federal Republic Nov 1945, after the expulsion of remaining German forces.
PROBLEM
During 1991, ethnic tensions throughout Yugoslavia helped weaken the precarious Bosnian presidency. When both Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence from Yugoslavia in June 1991, many Serbs throughout the remaining republics began proclaiming their allegiance to Serb-dominated Yugoslavia.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, as in Croatia, they formed Serbian Autonomous Regions (SARs). Rejection of the SARs by the Bosnian government led to armed conflicts between Serbs and non-Serbs. The dissenting Serbs formed an Assembly of the Serbian People and in November 1991 held a referendum for Serbs on whether they should remain part of Yugoslavia. While nearly all participants in the referendum voted to remain with Yugoslavia, voters in a similar referendum in March 1992 open to all ethnic groups (but boycotted by most Serbs) voted to secede. That same month, Bosnia and Herzegovina declared its independence. In early April, the Serbs, backed by the Yugoslav People's Army, began battling Croats and Muslims for territory.
By May 1992, when Serbia and Montenegro declared themselves the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), Serbs had gained control of nearly two-thirds of Bosnia and Herzegovina and laid siege to Sarajevo.
During the second half of 1992 violations of human rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the mass murder of Muslim villagers and the widespread rape of Muslim women by Serbian soldiers, in the name of so-called ethnic cleansing. International mediation, however, was able to accomplish very little.
As a result of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, between 100,000 and 250,000 people were reported killed and about 200,000 were wounded. The overwhelming majority of casualties were Muslims. An estimated 2.3 million people were displaced by the fighting to areas within and outside the country.
