Ellen Blackman

As a result of daily sniper fire and mortar shells exploding on the city, Sarajevo's hospitals were inundated with wounded. Without electricity and water, hospital staff could only perform the most routine operations. In addition, within the first months of the war, medical supplies such as antibiotics and painkillers ran out. To make matters worse, the Bosnian Serb Army frequently targeted the hospital in an effort to impede efforts to save the wounded, which imperiled the lives of the doctors and nurses who worked there.

During a mission to save Sarajevan children who had been wounded in the war, American writer and photographer Ellen Blackman visited the Sarajevo State Hospital. In the following excerpt from her book, Harvest in the Snow, Blackman describes the condition of the hospital, the wounded that were recovering there, and the determined staff who worked around...