Bosnia-Herzegovina marks 20 years since the start of its civil war, a conflict in which about 100,000 people were killed.
11,541 red chairs fill the road in Sarajevo, where the conflict started, one for each of the city's victims
Thousands of red chairs are standing empty along Sarajevo's main avenue as Bosnia and Herzegovina commemorates the 20th anniversary since the start of the country's war.
A classical orchestra is set to play a concert for the 11,541 empty seats on Friday, one for each civilian killed during a near-four-year siege of the city by Bosnian Serb forces which became a symbol of the 1992-1995 conflict.
Many have been walking past the chairs, which stretch for 800 metres along the central street in Sarajevo named after the founder of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito.
People have been placing white flowers on some of the chairs as they walk alongside them.
A teddy bear and toys have been placed on some of the small chairs symbolising a child killed during the four-year long siege by Serb forces.
Sarajevo residents stopped what they were doing and observed an hour of silence from 2:00pm local time to mark the start of the conflict.
The conflict began in April 1992 as part of the break-up of Yugoslavia.
About 100,000 people were killed and nearly half the population forced from their homes in four years of fighting.
Later, an orchestra will give a concert during which the chairs will remain empty.
The concert takes place exactly two decades after Bosnian Serb snipers opened fire on thousands of protesters, inflicting the first casualties of the war and triggering a conflict that tore apart the newly independent former Yugoslav republic along ethnic lines.
While many of the city's most symbolic buildings have been restored in the years since the end of the war, Sarajevo still bears the traces of shells and bullets.
The worst single atrocity during the war was at Srebrenica in the summer of 1995 when Bosnian Serb forces led by General Ratko Mladic over-ran a UN safe haven, killing about 8,000 Muslim men and boys.
But the war in Bosnia was a three-way mix, involving Serbs, Croats and Muslims. Bosnian Serb political and military leaders like Radovan Karadzic and Mladic are now both facing trial for genocide before a UN war crimes court at The Hague.
Modern Bosnia is still divided along ethnic lines between a Muslim-Croat Federation and the Bosnian Serbs' Republika Srpska.
Bosnia's two semi-autonomous regions have their own political institutions, loosely connected through an almost powerless central government.
A classical orchestra is set to play a concert for the 11,541 empty seats on Friday, one for each civilian killed during a near-four-year siege of the city by Bosnian Serb forces which became a symbol of the 1992-1995 conflict.
Many have been walking past the chairs, which stretch for 800 metres along the central street in Sarajevo named after the founder of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito.
People have been placing white flowers on some of the chairs as they walk alongside them.
A teddy bear and toys have been placed on some of the small chairs symbolising a child killed during the four-year long siege by Serb forces.
Sarajevo residents stopped what they were doing and observed an hour of silence from 2:00pm local time to mark the start of the conflict.
The conflict began in April 1992 as part of the break-up of Yugoslavia.
About 100,000 people were killed and nearly half the population forced from their homes in four years of fighting.
Later, an orchestra will give a concert during which the chairs will remain empty.
The concert takes place exactly two decades after Bosnian Serb snipers opened fire on thousands of protesters, inflicting the first casualties of the war and triggering a conflict that tore apart the newly independent former Yugoslav republic along ethnic lines.
While many of the city's most symbolic buildings have been restored in the years since the end of the war, Sarajevo still bears the traces of shells and bullets.
The worst single atrocity during the war was at Srebrenica in the summer of 1995 when Bosnian Serb forces led by General Ratko Mladic over-ran a UN safe haven, killing about 8,000 Muslim men and boys.
But the war in Bosnia was a three-way mix, involving Serbs, Croats and Muslims. Bosnian Serb political and military leaders like Radovan Karadzic and Mladic are now both facing trial for genocide before a UN war crimes court at The Hague.
Modern Bosnia is still divided along ethnic lines between a Muslim-Croat Federation and the Bosnian Serbs' Republika Srpska.
Bosnia's two semi-autonomous regions have their own political institutions, loosely connected through an almost powerless central government.
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