Frontline news

Frontline news

Sarajevo has been using the Internet to keep in touch with the outside world. Earlier this year, the Sarajevo On-Line project created a link between the devastated city and the rest of the world, letting citizens tell their stories and answer questions from other countries.

For 10 days the mail was pouring in and out of Sarajevo at an incredible rate; hundreds of messages were sent. Families tried to find relatives in Sarajevo and residents tried to give an idea of what it was like living in a war zone. Appeals for help, messages to world leaders, answers to difficult questions all came out of the city. The Sarajevo project gave Internet users a rare insight into the life of Sarajevo's heroes. One user described it as "history unfolding in front of your monitor".

Sarajevo On-Line has closed but the organisers hope to put the link back in place as soon as possible. Another site is the Usenet group misc.news.bosnia, which is one of the best sites for finding out the news behind the news.

The groups tends to lean to the government point of view. But careful reading between the lines reveals a lot about the war. The group has some excellent material, including a "Things You Should Know About Bosnia", and an interesting, if a little biased, look at Radovan Karadzic.

The group carries information from a variety of sources, giving a more rounded view of events in Bosnia than anywhere else on Usenet. If you want the bare facts without any commentary then this is a good place to start.