13 years after Dayton accord, ethnic divisions again threaten Bosnia
On the surface, this haunted capital, its ancient mosques and Orthodox churches still pocked with holes from mortar fire, appears to be enjoying a renaissance. Young professionals throng to stylish cafés and gleaming new shopping centers while the muezzin heralds the morning prayer. The ghosts of Srebrenica linger - recalling the worst massacre in Europe since World War II - but Sarajevans prefer to talk about Barack Obama or the global financial crisis than about genocide.
Yet the aftermath of war is ever present. The Dayton accord divided Bosnia and Herzegovina, a former Yugoslav republic, into a Muslim-Croat federation and a Serb republic after a savage war from 1992 to 1995 in which about 100,000 people were killed, the majority of them Muslims. A million more Muslims, Serbs and Croats were driven from their homes, while much of this rugged country's infrastructure was destroyed.