The children confined to Bjelave orphanage had suffered terribly – both because of the war, and from neglect and abuse. One journalist described the institution as “the worst place in Sarajevo apart from the morgue”.

It is more than 20 years since I first arrived in Sarajevo in late summer 1996. The destruction in the city was jaw-dropping: rows and rows of broken, bombed-out high-rise flats, shell craters and explosion indents everywhere; libraries, offices, factories all in ruins. This was city-wide destruction – a late-20th-century Dresden or Stalingrad.

The Bosnian war had ended in 1995 and Sarajevo was enjoying its long-awaited peace. Sarajevans took to its scarred streets in huge numbers, eating ice cream and drinking coffee safe in the knowledge they wouldn’t be struck down by a sniper or shell. It was a time for simple pleasures. Anxieties about the future, unemployment, PTSD and rebuilding their city would come later.

Sunday outing, Sarajevo, 1998. Photo by Edina Hrnjic aged 14.



In 1997 I set up a darkroom using donated equipment from Scotland and started a small photo class in the basement of the orphanage.



I taught the children, aged six to 16, basic photography techniques – shooting with 35mm SLR film cameras, developing their films and printing. There were no themed assignments or teaching of preconceived notions of what photography was, and the language barrier would not allow for the teaching of technicalities.

It was intended to be a creative outlet for children who had experienced an intense period of trauma during the war. But equally it had to be easy, it had to be fun Chris Leslie

The children from the orphanage and surrounding neighbourhood ran around their playgrounds and streets documenting anything that came into their viewpoint. They had free rein to photograph what they saw and what they wanted to capture. They photographed friends, strangers, destruction, peace-keeping soldiers, old ladies nosing out of windows, dogs in the park, street scenes, shopkeepers.

I ran the project voluntarily for three consecutive summers before training up one of the local students, Edina Hrnjic, to take over and run the project for the younger children.

Most of the photographs taken by these young people lay forgotten as negatives for more than 20 years and have only now been developed and scanned. The photographs show an honest and unique perspective on a Sarajevo that no longer exists. Its war-scarred buildings have been repaired and huge shopping malls and skyscraper apartments now fill the skyline.

Dina Džihanić in Sarajevo in June 2018, photo by Chris Leslie. Inset: Dina at the Sarajevo Eternal Flame memorial in 1997 aged 10, photo by Amra Džihanić Barac aged 13.



Dina

Dina Džihanić, now 31, joined the photo project in 1997 with her sister Amra. She lived in the same neighbourhood as Bjelave orphanage and frequently helped out with the younger children. Today she works in microfinance as a marketing manager. When the photo project was set up, she saw it as something special that she was lucky to be involved in. As a young child, she says, her experiences of war had been better than those of peace.

“War was the norm and everyone was equal: no one had anything,” she says. “But after war as people returned they had nice clothes, nice school stuff. The years after the war we really struggled – we had to wear old clothes that were too small for us. These were the worst moments for me.”

I remember the full darkroom process, even today. I was not aware that the photographs could be made by our hands. It was magical to us – it was the first good experience that really happened to us after the war Dina Džihanić

Oggi Tomic, aged 13, in Sarajevo, June 1997, photo by Chris Leslie. Click or tap the image to switch to a self-portrait by Oggi in Cambridge, June 2018.



Oggi

Oggi Tomic (who is also pictured in the main image) was born with water on the brain and abandoned at birth – doctors gave him just months to live. He survived surgery and spent his earliest years in several orphanages in the region. In 1993 war made life impossible, and he ran away to the besieged city of Sarajevo.

He entered a children’s institution there and stayed until 2004, when he was told to leave. A few years later he won a place to study documentary film and TV at the University of Wales and came to the UK on a student visa. He graduated with honours and set up his own successful film and video production agency in Cambridge.

I was one of the first students to join the photography project. I first saw Chris with those cameras and was immediately hooked, and ever since I saw photography as a way to stay out of trouble and express myself in the way institutional life in the orphanage never allowed Oggi Tomic

Photos by Oggi Tomic.





The graves of Edina Hrnjic and her son Nedim in 2018. Inset: Edina in Sarajevo, June 1999. Photos by Chris Leslie.

Edina

Edina Hrnjic joined the photo project in 1997. Two years later she took over the photo project and ran it for 12 months, teaching the younger children in the orphanage. In 2013, Edina, her one-year-old son Nedim and her mother were killed when a car Edina was driving lost control and crashed into the Neretva river. A special exhibition of the children’s photographs to be held later this year in Sarajevo will be dedicated to her memory.

Bosnia will survive as a country and Sarajevo will continue as a multicultural city, open to all. We have much work to do and there are still many divisions. But there is a new generation of young people born after the war who aren’t obsessed by it. We owe it to them to make it work Edina Hrnjic, 2011

Girl on a tram, Sarajevo, June 1998; and winter preparation, Dobrinja, Sarajevo, 1999. Photos by Edina Hrnjic.



Younger students with Chris Leslie and Edina Hrnjic, the former student he trained up to take over the project in 1999.

Amra Džihanić Barac aged 13 in June 1998, photo by Dzenita Hodzic, aged 11. Click or tap the image to switch to Amra aged 32, photo by Chris Leslie.



Amra

Amra Džihanić Barac, now 32, works as a restaurant manager in Sarajevo and has two young children. But like most people in the city, she feels hamstrung by the politics, corruption and poor salaries. “I have two beautiful children and I see that as my life’s achievement,” she says. “If I manage to leave this place and give them a better future, I will also consider that as an achievement.

“If you were to meet me only a few years ago, I would tell you how much I love my city. I would be a huge patriot. But as I look over this city today with its beautiful views, I no longer see it as such. The political situation disgusts me. People who were born in this city and who live here are treated as second-class citizens.”

Rina Trifkovic in her local neighbourhood in June 2018, photo by Chris Leslie. Inset: Rina aged eight in the Bjelave orphanage playground, photo by Muhamd Bosnjo aged 12. Now an accountant, on her days off she visits the orphanage and arranges excursions for the children.



Rina

Rina Trifkovic, now 28, was abandoned as a baby in Bjelave orphanage. On the outbreak of war she and 40 other children were evacuated to Germany. When the bus carrying the children made its way through the besieged capital, it came under sniper fire. Two children were killed, and several were taken off the bus at a Bosnian Serb militia checkpoint.

Life in an orphanage seemed normal to me. It was all I knew – I didn’t see the ‘other’ side of life. I guess I missed the true love of parents, but then again I never knew what that was so I don’t know how it feels. But what I am most proud of is that I am a self-made woman today. I have learned to depend on no one but me Rina Trifkovic

Rina Trifkovic (right) learns photography in 1998. Photo by Dzenita Katovic.



In 1997 Rina and 30 other children were returned home to Sarajevo amid much of the same controversy that accompanied their evacuation. The war had ended and Bosnian officials insisted on bringing the children back to their native country because as Bosnians they belonged in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Dzenita Katovic, aged 13, sits outside the destroyed BiH parliament building in June 1998, photo by Edina Hrnjic. Click or tap the image to switch to Dzenita photographed afresh in front of the newly repaired building in June 2018, photo by Chris Leslie.



Dzenita

Dzenita Katovic was 13 when she joined the project from the outset in 1997. She lived in the surrounding neighbourhood near to the orphanage. Today she is married with a child and works as a primary school teacher. She would like to stay in Sarajevo and bring up her family.

I was born here and I survived the war and I love it here. I have got used to the rhythm of life in Sarajevo. You never know where life takes you – but one thing's for sure, if there is ever a hint of war returning here, I am gone Dzenita Katovic

Dog in Sarajevo, August 1997, photo by Dzenita Katovic.

Muhamd Bosnjo, 34, sits near the spot where his mother jumped to her death from the cliffs behind him, June 2018. Inset: Muhamd outside the destroyed Oslobođenje newspaper office at the age of 13 in June 1998. Photos by Chris Leslie.



Muhamd

Muhamd Bosnjo lived in Bjelave orphanage after being abandoned at two months old. His mother had mental health issues and couldn’t care for him.



During the war the children lived out a modern-day Lord of the Flies as their carers fled or were placed on the frontline. Muhamd and the other children would beg and steal to survive. At the age of eight he was wounded by a shell that fell in his playground, severely damaging his leg. When he was 10 he was held captive by Serbian forces for several months as they interrogated him for information. He was later released in a prisoner exchange.

Sarajevo is a tough city. Unemployment is through the roof. I’m lucky to have a job, but the pay is poor. I dream of being able to live my days out in my city, to spend my last days here. But not these days ... Muhamd Bosnjo

Robna Kuća shopping centre, 1997. Photo by Muhamd Bosnjo.



He later married and lived briefly in London before getting divorced. The Home Office then told him he had to leave the UK and he was sent back to Bosnia. Today he works for a security company in various shops across the city. It is a tough job with poor pay.

Ten years ago Muhamd’s mother committed suicide by jumping off a high cliff at the edge of the city. On his one day off work he always sits by the spot where his mother died.

Dzenita Hodzic, aged 11, in June 1997, photo by Amra Džihanić Barac. Click or tap the image to switch to Dzenita in June 2018, on her way to the technical school where she works as a teacher, photo by Chris Leslie.



Dzenita

Dzenita Hodzic joined the photo project in 1998 aged 13. Today she works as a physics teacher and professor of mathematics and computer science.

I loved making the photos. I loved that darkroom smell. These are happy memories, because I am only choosing to remember good things from my childhood – I don’t want to remember the bad things Dzenita Hodzic

Nusret revisits the bombed-out windowless squat where he lived with other homeless Sarajevans, June 2018, photo by Chris Leslie. Inset: Nusret, aged 13, and another child, photo by Dina Džihanić.



Nusret

Nusret lost both his parents at the start of the war in 1992 when a shell hit their apartment. He and his brother where then sent to the Bjelave orphanage where they fought hard to survive as the siege of Sarajevo raged.

When he was 15 he and brother were kicked out the orphanage and he hit hard times, living homeless and begging on the streets. His brother died of an overdose. For a brief time he managed to come off drugs and settled down and got married, having a young baby son. The child was later taken from him by the authorities, who claimed it was at risk, and placed in the same orphanage Nusret once called home.

Nusret, aged 12, plays next to the destroyed UNIS Towers in Sarajevo’s financial centre in June 1997. Photo by Chris Leslie.

Tragically, his child was one of six babies killed when a fire swept through the orphanage in 2007. Today, Nusret is off drugs and no longer begging or homeless on the streets. A local mosque has provided him with monthly rent and he now spends his time at the mosque praying and doing odd jobs. After years of struggle, he has finally found “home”.

That orphanage ruined my life. They offer no love, no protection, and they killed my son. I will never forgive them for that Nusret

Photos by Nusret

Sarajevo in June 1997. Click or tap the image to see how it looks today. Photos by Chris Leslie.



This project was supported by Hope and Homes for Children, a charity working to eradicate orphanages worldwide by finding safe, loving family and community bases for children, and Post-Conflict Research Center, a local NGO that promotes sustainable peace and the restoration of interethnic relationships in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

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