"I'm talking to you from your future": a conversation with Aida Čerkez, 30 years on from the siege of Sarajevo

Yahoo

26-05-2025

Thirty years ago, Sarajevo was surrounded by artillery, snipers, and silence from the rest of the world. Bosnia was at war with Serbia and Croatia. Inside the besieged city, Aida Čerkez, a young journalist, was covering the war for the Associated Press from her basement newsroom, living under constant shelling, with no electricity, and with the gnawing sense that no one was listening.
In the early days of the full-scale invasion, she wrote a letter to Ukrainians telling them that "Ukraine will stand, the rest will pass."
Now, three decades later, she speaks to Ukrainians from a place we haven't yet reached: "afterwards". Aida has lived through war, grief, exile, return – and the long, messy road of trying to build something human from the rubble.
Some of her reflections may not sit comfortably with Ukrainian readers. She talks about the weight of hatred, the moral fog of trauma, and the dangerous appeal of righteous anger. But perhaps that's exactly why her voice matters now – not because it echoes our own, but because it disrupts the echo chamber.
In this interview, Aida shares what it means to keep reporting when the world seems indifferent, what silence enables in war, and why – even after everything – she still believes we can plant trees we may never see grow.
We recorded this conversation in Lviv during Lviv Media Forum 2025.
You once said that while you were in Sarajevo under siege, you lived with the illusion that showing the truth would be enough to stop the war. Do you remember the exact moment when you lost that illusion?
It wasn't one moment, it was a process. It was maybe two years into the war… I think it was during one of those peace negotiations like the one taking place today [this interview was recorded on 16 May as the talks between Ukraine and Russia were taking place – ed.]. And people just stopped counting the peace negotiations at 300.
Some of those peace negotiations would actually start with big artillery attacks on Sarajevo, which was a kind of pressure on the negotiators.
So, you have this fear of peace negotiations because they're going to be violent for us while they're talking in Geneva. They're going to be pounding on us in order to put pressure on our negotiators. I remember people coming down the hallway in my building saying, "Peace negotiations are starting – let's go to the basement."
So many of them failed that at some point I asked myself: what am I doing? You know, this has no effect on the public. This has no effect on the negotiators. This has no effect on foreign governments. So who am I actually talking to? Realising that for two years you've been reporting day and night, and nothing – zero – makes you kind of break down and think "It's not worth it." But in fact the process is so slow.
You are changing public opinion. It's just so slow. When you're being shot at, every minute counts. You don't have time for years. But these things take years.
It's this discrepancy, your impatience and reality – the reality which is you are changing the world, but it's so slow you can't see it. Exactly like the avenue I was talking about [during the discussion panel before the interview – ed.]: you have this beautiful avenue full of trees. If you look up, you can't see the sky because the trees are so beautiful and grown, and the people who planted them knew that they would not live to see this avenue. And it took 100 years maybe for those trees to grow and be that beautiful and turn it into this beautiful avenue.
You may not even live to see peace and the effects of your work. But it'll be there , and this is something you have to realise, the slowness of the process and your impatience. It'll take decades for you to see the results. Maybe you never will, but it will be there.
You realised that afterwards, as far as I understand…
I realised that decades after the war, 20 years after the war.
During that period when you were there, how did you fight frustration? How did you fight those feelings that you had no power over this?
I cried.
I cried a lot, and then those tears turned into hysteria, and then I started laughing and joking about it with other people. In the end, it just turned into a big joke. You just keep on rolling, and sometimes you just report because it's your job. But that's not enough.
You have to see a purpose. I think that at some point you will contribute to a change that may not be "peace", but it may be a change of attitude, a change in the global consciousness about problems. You will contribute to that.
It may not be good for Ukraine, and fast enough for Ukraine, but trust me: every day you are switching one person from not caring into somebody who is aware of other people and cares about other people. And that one person out of the seven billion is worth what you are doing.
What advice would you give right now to Ukrainian journalists and activists who have realised that their articles no longer provoke any action from the authorities?
Okay, what I would say to them is: try to imagine a world in which you all stop reporting. What's that going to look like?
Sad.
Uh-huh. So, are you improving the world with your articles?
I guess so. I hope so.
What's the alternative? No information? You know what that means? That means turning the light off and letting the bad people do whatever the hell they want to do without anybody seeing it. At least you're making it visible. Visibility gives some kind of a guarantee that it's not going to get worse. And that's what you're doing – keeping the light on. Because when it's dark, it gets ugly.
So, you may think that you are watching massacres and you're watching wars and you're watching injustice and you are showing it to the world. But trust me, if you stop, it's going to get much worse. In the darkness, much more is possible than in daytime.
During your panel, you mentioned that the media shouldn't be angry and provoke more anger. When you reported during the siege of Sarajevo, how did you keep yourself from getting angry and remain a professional journalist?
It's difficult, but maybe not, you know. You have to kind of develop some kind of a bipolar..
Really?
I saw myself as bipolar. One side of me was personally affected by this war. But I knew that if I let my emotions enter my articles – and I was working for foreign media – I wouldn't be trusted.
So, at the time we had only heard about drones as something that might happen in the future, and somebody explained to me what they were. I always imagined myself sitting there seeing the situation from my perspective, which is the perspective of a victim of a big atrocity.
But then I would kind of imagine myself being a drone, and then looking at it from above, like God or an angel or a drone or something, and then report about it.
That would allow me to exclude my emotions from the report. It wasn't that hard because the facts are already horrible. You don't have to add bad words to them. You don't have to add lies to them. Even what is happening is not believable.
The truth is even harder to believe. You don't have to add anything to it. And you are coming at this from the moral side of this situation. So it's easier for you. Imagine what it is like for an honest Russian who really wants to report what's going on.
After the first half a sentence, he will be in jail, and after six months, dead. Sometimes that's worse than this, you know? And I only learned that after the war, when I discovered how many people in Belgrade had tried to tell the truth and were killed.
So I realised later it was actually much easier for me under sniper fire and under bombs. You're just sitting in a basement, but at least you have the impression that you're on the right side of history and you're doing the right thing.
That's much easier than being on the wrong side of history and trying to do something about it. I have a lot of respect for my colleagues in Bosnia who covered the war, but I have more respect for people I met later who suffered the consequences in their own society, in their own country, of only trying to tell the truth. And I have to tell you, that's worse. Because you're expelled from your community, and you may end up dead.
At least here on my side, we're all together with a feeling that we're victims and we're right. In that sense, the honest people on the other side are the bigger victims sometimes.
When the full-scale invasion started, you wrote a letter to Ukrainians because you were on the same side as Ukrainians are now. What motivated you to do this?
I was angry. I was so angry because it was happening again. I was angry at everybody because I had seen that this was going to happen. Nobody has military exercises on their foreign border without wanting to roll in.
What was the purpose of that? It was just that nobody wanted to [see this – ed.] except us in Bosnia – we saw it all coming, but we have that experience. Then I thought, "Man, why is it that nobody in Europe or in Ukraine could believe that this was going to happen, and it was only us in Sarajevo who knew they were going to attack you?"
That's when I realised that it was because we had that experience, and if we didn't share it with the people over there, then what? If we all die and our experience dies with us, then it was all for nothing.
People who've gone through this kind of thing and have any kind of experience should share it with others, because then it becomes common knowledge, and that is progress. Not learning something and then dying with it – that's not progress. I saw my letter and my warning to Ukraine as exactly that – a warning and progress.
You should know what's coming your way. I didn't. But you should learn. From my experience, it'll make your life easier. And tomorrow when this ends, do the same for the next one in the line.
You saw the same stages of the beginning of the war now and the war then…
Same.
Maybe then you can tell us what mistakes Ukraine shouldn't repeat now.
Be careful what narrative you develop. Because when all this is over, you may get consumed by hatred. It won't affect Russia. They don't care whether you like them or not. But your society will be stuck in hatred that will block you from progress.
You should not forget what happened to you. But you should not be obsessed with it. That's why you should try to avoid hate speech. Because hate speech will poison the next generation. You're passing down trauma to the next generation. You should warn the next generation and make them aware of the history and the danger, but not pass on your trauma.
Because it will block them from growing up as normal people. Many people made that mistake in Bosnia, but in general, many people got over it.
I always have to mention and remember there is a city in Eastern Bosnia called Srebrenica. There was a genocide committed over there. So, the mothers of the victims have an association. I've been stunned by their courage in seeking the truth, insisting on [justice in the] courts, but reaching out to the progressive people in Serbia.
They stand together every 11 July: the Mothers of Srebrenica and the women in black from Belgrade stand together next to the graves. That is a healing process for both of them. It doesn't matter what it looks like, but for both of them it's a healing process. They're above the conflict of nations.
They have understood that it's a conflict between good and bad, and they're both on the good side, instead of accusing a nation of being bad and I'm good, mine is good. That's wrong because it will just block you. They have understood that there are good people on both sides.
If you decide to be among the good people on this planet and not just to be a Ukrainian, it's much more than just being a member of a nation.
How much time passed before this happened?
I think it took maybe five or six years. Very soon. Very soon.
Actually, the women from Belgrade reached out, and there was this hand that accepted, and they met and cried and now they're sisters.
For me as a Ukrainian, that's hard to imagine…
It is hard to imagine. Yes, it was for me, too.
Especially right now in the middle of the war. I want to understand how it is possible, because you are already in a post-war period – one which I cannot even imagine. What does it look like?
I'm talking to you from your future. I have to tell you that in the future, you will find out how many victims the Kremlin regime has caused in Russia.
You will learn about this seven-year-old girl who drew a Ukrainian flag at school and her father is in jail. Because a little girl is not even Ukrainian. She's nothing. She probably… Now, why would a little girl do that? Do you know why?
Because she probably heard a conversation at home where people were probably saying, "Our country is doing terrible things to Ukraine," and they're right. She picked up on that and expressed it in a drawing at school. Of course the authorities knew that a little girl couldn't invent that. So her father is in jail. You will hear about many such fathers.
You will hear about people who died in prison because they criticised this aggression. You don't hear about them now because they're invisible and you can't hear them. Nobody can, because the regime is so harsh that they just disappear overnight.
One day when everything is over, it will start coming out. You will see how some resistance was present in Russia. And that people died because of it. Just like you died because of the same regime. It will surprise you. It surprised me.
I travel all over the world, and wherever I go, there are Serbs. They left during the war. I look at them and I think, "This guy chose to leave his country forever because of what his country was doing to me. He lost his country because of me." Of course I can sympathise.
They have new lives, they're happy, but they lost their country. They will never come back. Their children speak English or German, and that family is lost forever for Serbia. Forever and ever. Their children don't even speak Serbian because of what others in their country did to me, and they're victims.
Twenty, thirty years later, you realise that, and then you stop hating everybody. You will realise how many victims there were on both sides – more on yours, but some on theirs as well.
I have many colleagues that have had to leave Russia forever because they criticised the Kremlin narrative. They live in Riga or [wherever – ed.]… That's not easy. They're refugees because of what's happening to you. Open your heart a little bit to those people.
But there is a difference. They were against the regime, and that's why that country lost those people. In the case of Ukraine, there are more refugees which our country has also lost just because of Russia. How can we compare this?
That's statistics. There are more Ukrainian victims than Russian ones, is that what you're trying to say?
No, I'm saying that the people we lose are not victims, they're refugees.
They're victims too. If you lose your country, you're a victim. To lose your country is horrible. If you have to move and it's not your choice, but you're kicked out by either circumstances or a regime, that's not your choice, you're a victim.
You may be living fine. Let me give you an example. My mother was a refugee in Germany. I was in Sarajevo. At the time, I was angry with every refugee because they had abandoned us. To me they were traitors, including my mother, even though I made her leave so she could look after my child, you know. But there was this emotional rift between us.
I felt like I had the upper hand because I was here and she wasn't. Particularly after one conversation. There was a terrible day when there was shelling and it was really horrible. I thought, "She's constantly sitting watching the television. They're going to report on this, she's going to be worried. Let me call her." I had a satellite phone because I worked for a foreign company, so that was a rare privilege. I remember we crawled under the tables, and I took the satellite phone down and dialled my mother and said, "Hello." And it was hell all around me, like the ceiling was falling down, and I was kind of holding the handset so she didn't hear the bombs.
I said, "Hey, I just wanted to say that there's a little attack on Sarajevo but I'm fine. How are you?" And quickly end it so she couldn't hear the bombs. And this is what she says: "Oh, we're good. Hey, do you have one of those cordless phones in your office?"
I was like "No, why?" "Oh, I just read in a magazine that cordless phones can give you brain cancer. So if you have one, just don't use it. Take a phone with a cord." And the walls around me are collapsing. She's thinking about brain cancer and cordless phones. And I said, "Yeah, yeah, okay, okay, I have to go. Bye." And I hung up, and my colleague under the other table said, "What did she say?" I said, "She said I shouldn't use a cordless phone because it can give you brain cancer." We're already in a building that's falling apart. And he looks out at me and says, "Oh, I wish I could die of cancer."
They're totally different perspectives, and those perspectives can split a society into those who see themselves as brave enough to have stayed and defended the country in whatever way, at least just by being there, and those who left, who are traitors and cowards.
Well, I think I've told you about when I had pneumonia and I left, and I had to stay in Germany, and I got this document that said Germany was going "to put up with me" as a refugee [the Duldung, a German residence permit – ed.]. It is so humiliating. And sitting there and not being able to do anything to help your family, and your country, and your friends back home, is horrible. It's unbearable.
I have one uncle who… We never talked about it, but my aunt told me. They were in Vienna. He was working from home and she would go to work, and she knows that every time she left the house, he would switch off the electricity and water in the apartment and sit there in the darkness.
It was easier for him to deprive himself of food, water and electricity, thinking that even though they were in Vienna, this way he was showing solidarity. It was totally pointless, but it made him feel better. That's no life to live. It's no life to live. It is difficult to be a refugee. It is horrible to be a refugee.
If you ask me, I had the chance to be a refugee and to be in the worst siege since World War II. And I chose the siege. Being a refugee is so bad and so hurtful, it was easier to go back. I don't even know what the question was.
How did you not lose the connection with those people who were refugees, including your mother and child?
Oh man, when she came back… We were like two horns in a bag, constantly clashing. She felt that she didn't belong there because we were mistreating her with our attitude.
And it was true. You're invited to some party, and very soon you see that somehow the people who stayed in Sarajevo are in one room after an hour, and those who were refugees are in another room. They have their conversations and we have ours.
They feel horrible in our presence because we're constantly exchanging our experiences that they were not part of. They feel insulted by this. It's survivors' guilt. They feel guilty for not being there.
My son, after he came back to Sarajevo, was confronted with this when he was in the company of children who had been in Sarajevo. He started self-harming. Because he wanted to share the suffering. He felt that he wasn't part of his environment because he hadn't been through whatever the other children had been through.
So he started cutting himself. It took a lot of time for him to heal. Is that good? Is that life?
No.
So, the wounds that refugee status leaves in your soul are sometimes worse than those of somebody living in Lviv. Trust me.
How can we reinclude these people in society?
Time will tell you. Stop talking constantly about your experiences during the war. It hurts them. Your resentment towards them is… at least ours. Like they were not part of society. Like they were intruders. Like they have nothing to say.
They should not even vote – that was the idea.
Some people are saying that in Ukraine now.
Yeah, what gives you the right to vote? I gave you that passport, and you should always be thankful to us. And in a way that's true, but consider this: women and children in wartime are a burden. They should go.
They are just more mouths to feed, and that's why I sent my mother and my son away. I don't have water for them. They don't contribute to the situation. They just eat my food. And I am contributing to the resistance, I'm doing something.
They're just sitting there eating and drinking and using my resources. So I sent them away. Go and do that somewhere else and leave everything for me, because I'm doing something. That's the feeling you have. So basically I chased them away from their home. That was not fair, but it was a practical thing to do.
Now they bear their own wounds from that, and I am guilty for chasing them away.
It took until 2017 for me and my son to fix our relationship, because he grew up with the sense of me having abandoned him because I sent him to Germany. Until 2017, we never had a real, honest relationship.
It was fixed in 2017 because we were shooting a movie and we were recreating the scene when I sent him out. I invited him to be there, and he watched that scene all day long because it was constantly repeated – movies are terribly boring to make.
I think when he went home after that, he changed his mind and saw it from my perspective – somehow the next day everything was fixed. Our whole relationship was new in the morning – at the snap of a finger. He needed to understand what I did, and now that he has children, he understands it very well.
So we have a much better relationship now than we used to have before. That's what wars do.
I don't want to compare, but maybe some people from the occupied territories will read this, and the siege feels like you are left out, you don't know what's going on. Somehow people in the occupied territories who have no access to proper information feel the same. What can you suggest they do?
Do they have the internet?
I guess so, but websites which aren't Russian are mostly blocked.
Yes, so that's not having the internet.
Yes.
Well, they're exposed to certain propaganda. I don't know if they're buying it or not. But I have always thought that it's even worse to live in occupied territories than under a Sarajevo siege, which is considered the worst. Somehow, it's easier for me to listen to bombs than to the sound of the boots of soldiers coming upstairs. I always preferred to listen to artillery and bullets. You can hide from them. You go to the basement.
But when you hear soldiers' boots coming up the stairway, and you know that there's nowhere to go and in 30 seconds they are going to enter your apartment and do whatever they want – for me, that sound of the boots was always worse than bombs. So have some understanding for them.
They are living under a completely different threat, a much more real threat than you are.
More than 30 years on from the siege, have you ever thought of changing your decision and leaving the country at that moment?
I've never regretted it. I would not have been able to sit somewhere else and watch it on TV without doing anything.
I have friends, for example – and I'm still friends with them – who said, "I thought at the beginning, 'This is not my work. Screw this, I'm going to go.'" They're Canadians now and have absolutely no feeling toward Bosnia. They're Canadians, but we're still friends. It's okay.
I am not that kind of person. I couldn't have watched it on TV. I had to do something about it. I felt it was an attack on my personality, on my pride, on everything I stand for. I'm not a person you can come up to and say, "Get out of here. This is mine. Out!" – and I go. I'll at least put up a fight.
But I understand people who go, because that's much more rational than what I did.
You told a story about your expedition to Antarctica [during the panel discussion – ed.]. You said that there are better professions, like researching penguins, or ice, or something else. Did you regret having devoted your life to investigating war crimes?
I did. I looked at those scientists in Antarctica and I thought, "What a great life." They have nothing to do with wars, or war crimes, or war criminals, or organised crime. Why the hell did I choose to deal with these things?
This is insane. Wouldn't it have been much nicer just to research ice and worry about penguins and stuff like that? It would. But that's what I did. I don't regret it. I don't know if I would do it again. But I do have the feeling that I have changed the world a little bit and that's kind of the purpose of everybody , right? To bring humanity forward. They're bringing humanity forward big time. But I did it my way and they did it their way. Their job is nicer, mine is uglier, but we're on the same mission.
So yeah, I could have chosen better, but I don't regret it.
You also mentioned the book that you wrote about the siege of Sarajevo, and you said that it's horrible and you'll never publish it.
No, it sucks.
And was it therapeutic writing for you...?
No.
…Or was it re-traumatisation?
It was re-traumatisation. I don't know why I did this to myself.
Sometimes I'd be writing and vomiting. And in the end I said, "Why am I doing this to myself? Look, the sun is shining outside. I should take my dog out and go for a walk. Why am I going back to the past? As if anybody's going to learn anything. Well, if they haven't learned something by now, they're not going to learn it from my book." So I stopped. Maybe I will continue one day, but I don't feel ready to go through this. I don't want to waste my time on an ugly past.
Does that mean that some stories don't have to be told afterwards?
Oh, all stories should be told. It's just too painful. Somebody else should do it.