Word: sarajevos
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When the last cease-fire in Bosnia ended on May 1, a period of relative peace that had graced Sarajevo for four months was shattered as the Serbs resumed shelling without letup. As a result, at the time the Bosnian offensive started, the city was experiencing one of its most dispiriting moments since the war began in 1992. Many roads into town had been closed. The airlift, by which half the city's food supplies are delivered, had been suspended for nine weeks. The Serbs had shut off all gas, electricity and running water...
Civil society in Sarajevo had all but disappeared. With most cafes closed, people could no longer engage in the city's favorite pastime, sipping Turkish coffee and arguing. Eating was a dull affair, enlivened only by combining U.N. food packages in inventive ways. (The recipe for one popular preparation, "brains": fry onions in oil, then combine sour yeast and bread crumbs.) Spring had arrived, but children had given up playing volleyball, football and their nameless street games. Many shops were closed, and those that remained open were poorly stocked...
...army's apparent bid to break the iron ring of Serb artillery that has encircled the city for more than three years. The first reports were of success, and elation overtook even those whose experience seemed to warrant it least. "Victory is ours!" exclaimed Mehmet Gluhic, a worker at Sarajevo's morgue, who tended to 28 bodies the day the offensive started and to 12 the next day. "There will be as many victims as God wishes, but we have proved that we are capable of breaking the resistance of our enemies...
...only can the Bosnian government not lift the siege, but the situation of Sarajevo today is even more dire than before. Last week the United Nations abandoned altogether its 16-month effort to shield the city from Serbian bombardment. By Monday U.N. forces had withdrawn from the 10 depots originally established to collect and control the Serbian cannons, howitzers, tanks and artillery pieces that were used to bombard the city. Moreover, it now appears that despite protestations it would never do so, the U.N. had in fact made a deal in which it agreed, among other things, not to conduct...
...became clear that the prospect of liberation was an illusion, residents of Sarajevo found their optimism choked off. Hope, like everything else inside the city, now needs to be rationed carefully; overindulging only makes the want of it more keen. Last Wednesday afternoon about 50 people were on the street in the suburb of Dobrinja. The day was sunny, and many were digging in the makeshift vegetable gardens that Sarajevans have taken to cultivating in whatever scrap of dirt they can find. Suddenly, a Serb shell lanced in, killing six people. "The Serbs always like to catch us at such...