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161-454: Especially after the siege of Sarajevo , the term has increasingly been used to describe violence specifically directed to the destruction of an urban area. At the conclusion of the Yugoslav Wars , urbicide began to emerge as a distinct legal concept in international law. The exact constraints and definition of this term continues to be debated, and because the study of urbicide intersects with

322-607: A national assembly dominated by three ethnically based parties, which had formed a loose coalition to oust the communists from power. Croatia and Slovenia 's subsequent declarations of independence and the warfare that ensued placed Bosnia and Herzegovina and its three constituent peoples in an awkward position. A significant split soon developed on the issue of whether to stay with the Yugoslav federation (overwhelmingly favoured among Serbs) or to seek independence (overwhelmingly favoured among Bosniaks and Croats ). Throughout 1990,

483-511: A state of emergency the following day. Later that day, Serb paramilitaries in Sarajevo repeated their action of the previous month. A crowd of peace marchers, between 50,000 and 100,000 comprising all ethnic groups, rallied in protest . When a huge crowd approached a barricade, a demonstrator was killed by Serb forces. Six Serb snipers were arrested, but were exchanged when the Serbs threatened to kill

644-514: A Serb tank, destroying it. From 15 to 22 June, the ARBiH would launch an offensive into the Sarajevo Region to try to recapture lost territories from the Serbs. In the north, the 16th Division/ 1st Corps attacked Cemerska Hills and recaptured it. The Serbs would attack and capture Cemerska hills from the ARBiH. From the center, the 12th Division/1st Corps attacked Serb position of Debelo Brdo . In

805-541: A UN Safe Area (along with Žepa, Goražde, Tuzla, and Bihać). These cities and territories were placed under the protection of UNPROFOR peacekeeping units. On 5 February 1994 at 12:10–12:15, a 120-millimeter mortar shell landed in the center of the crowded marketplace and killed 68 and injured 144. The perpetrators were the Army of Republika Srpska. In December 2003, the ICTY convicted Bosnian Serb General Stanislav Galić , concluded that

966-486: A Ukrainian UNPROFOR peacekeeper. In response to the attack, the UN once again requested NATO air support. Two U.S. A-10 aircraft repeatedly strafed Serb targets, and the Serbs returned the seized weapons to the collection site. On 22 September, UNPROFOR again requested NATO air support in the Sarajevo area after Serb forces attacked a French armored personnel carrier . In response, two British SEPECAT Jaguar aircraft struck near

1127-718: A burning stick onto one of the Temple's walls. Destroying the Temple was not among Titus's goals, possibly due in large part to the massive expansions done by Herod the Great mere decades earlier. Titus had wanted to seize it and transform it into a temple dedicated to the Roman Emperor and the Roman pantheon . However, the fire spread quickly and was soon out of control. The Temple was captured and destroyed on 9/10 Tisha B'Av , sometime in August 70 CE, and

1288-405: A deliberate provocation. The groom's father was killed, and an Orthodox priest was wounded. Some of the witnesses identified the shooter as Ramiz Delalić , a Bosniak gangster who had become increasingly brazen since the collapse of communism. Arrest warrants were issued for him and another assailant, but little effort was made by the Sarajevo police to apprehend them. The killing was denounced by

1449-466: A few days before Passover, on 14 Xanthicus (April), surrounding the city with three legions ( V Macedonica , XII Fulminata , XV Apollinaris ) on the western side and a fourth ( X Fretensis ) on the Mount of Olives , to the east. If the reference in his Jewish War at 6:421 is to Titus's siege, though difficulties exist with its interpretation, then at the time, according to Josephus , Jerusalem

1610-524: A final stand in the Upper City. This defense halted the Roman advance as they had to construct siege towers to assail the remaining Jews. Herod's Palace fell on 7 September, and the city was completely under Roman control by 8 September. The Romans continued to pursue those who had fled the city. The account of Josephus described Titus as moderate in his approach and, after conferring with others, ordering that

1771-475: A force of two tanks and 40–50 Bosnian Serb soldiers blockaded the road. The Serbs, acting on radioed information from a Serbian military liaison officer at the airport that "Turkish fighters" were on their way to reinforce the Bosnian defenders, accused the three French soldiers manning the armored vehicle of transporting "Turkish mujahedeen". After a Serbian military liaison officer identified the passenger as Turajlić,

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1932-516: A greater focus on the human rights aspect of them. The term urbicide can still apply, but human rights language may allow for a more familiar approach to these cases as many people are already aware of the general rights that people hold. These rights are explicitly stated here to fully demonstrate how fundamental rights are being violated as part of urbicide: Article 3 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has

2093-462: A lengthy burning damaged the limestones. The Burnt House in the Herodian Quarter, for example, shows signs of a fire that raged at the site during the city's destruction. The fire left its mark even on household utensils and objects that were in the same buildings. Limestone vessels were stained with ash or even burned and turned into lime, glass vessels exploded and warped from the heat of

2254-452: A merciful God's intervention on behalf of the besieged Jews, or as a stratagem to make the defenders more desperate, supposing that was necessary in order to repel the Roman army. According to Josephus, when the Romans reached Antonia they tried to destroy the wall which protected it. They removed four stones only, but during the night the wall collapsed. "That night the wall was so shaken by

2415-418: A million people lived in all of the land of Israel at the time, about half of them Jews, and that sizable Jewish populations remained in the area after the war was over, even in the hard-hit region of Judea. Schwartz, however, believes that the captive number of 97,000 is more reliable. It has also been noted that the revolt had not deterred pilgrims from visiting Jerusalem, and a large number became trapped in

2576-1012: A minority population and their cultural and symbolic space, as in cases of genocide but to fragment the heterogeneous population of the city into homogeneous enclaves based on the ethnicity of the population. Thus, the violence is not directed towards an ethnicity per se, but towards the city as a heterogeneous space where different cultural identities can live and interact without antagonism. Siege of Sarajevo Military stalemate [REDACTED] Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina [REDACTED] Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia [REDACTED] United Nations [REDACTED]   SFR Yugoslavia (April–May 1992) [REDACTED]   Republika Srpska (May 1992–96) [REDACTED] France [REDACTED] Italy [REDACTED] Ireland [REDACTED] Ukraine [REDACTED] Sweden [REDACTED] Denmark 1993 1994 1995 The siege of Sarajevo ( Serbo-Croatian : Opsada Sarajeva )

2737-606: A motorist was killed by armed Serbs in Doboj . By the end of the day, twelve people had been killed in the fighting. Following Bosnia and Herzegovina's official declaration of independence from Yugoslavia on 3 March 1992, sporadic fighting broke out between Serbs and government forces all across the territory. It continued through the run-up to Bosnia and Herzegovina's recognition as an independent state. On 3 March, Bosnia's Bosniak President Alija Izetbegović claimed that Serbs from Pale were marching on Sarajevo. Fighting soon broke out in

2898-467: A number of disciplines including international politics , anthropology , and sociology , it has been difficult for scholars and policymakers to set a finite definition which satisfies all these fields. The term "urbicide" has its roots in the Latin word urbs , meaning "city", and occido , meaning "to massacre". In 1944, Raphael Lemkin defined genocide as "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at

3059-486: A perspective that modern scholars generally support, though the debate remains unsettled. Josephus had acted as a mediator for the Romans and, when negotiations failed, witnessed the siege and aftermath. He wrote: Now as soon as the army had no more people to slay or to plunder, because there remained none to be the objects of their fury (for they would not have spared any, had there remained any other work to be done), [Titus] Caesar gave orders that they should now demolish

3220-524: A quarter of the city's retail space. The Europa Hotel on Great Victoria Street gained notoriety as the world's most bombed building. In response, a 'ring of steel' was erected, encircling the city center with steel gates and armed guards to protect businesses and search pedestrians; this led, in the words of urbanist Jon Coaffee, to the "defensive landscape transformation" of Belfast, which extended to other parts of Northern Ireland. This measures forced bombers to adapt, using smaller, incendiary devices. However,

3381-584: A renaissance in the following decade after violence erupted in Kosovo . While the goal of Serbian nationalists was the centralization of a Serb -dominated Yugoslavia, other nationalities in Yugoslavia aspired to federalization and the decentralization of the state. On 18 November 1990, the first multi-party parliamentary elections were held in Bosnia and Herzegovina (with a second round on 25 November). They resulted in

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3542-493: A river of blood and the bodies of those killed at the top slithered to the bottom. Josephus's account absolves Titus of any culpability for the destruction of the Temple, but this may merely reflect his desire to procure favor with the Flavian dynasty . According to Josephus, the excitement of the Roman troops led them to fuel the flames beyond control. In contrast, another historiographic tradition, which traces back to Tacitus and

3703-510: A significant amount of time, if not for the intense civil war that then broke out between moderates and Zealots. In the summer of 69 CE, Vespasian departed Judea for Rome and in December became Emperor, with command of the Roman legions passing to his son Titus . Josephus places the siege in the second year of Vespasian , which corresponds to year 70 of the Common Era . Titus began his siege

3864-599: A testimony to the city's former might. The siege had a major toll on human life, with many people being killed and enslaved, and large parts of the city destroyed. This victory gave the Flavian dynasty legitimacy to claim control over the empire. A triumph was held in Rome to celebrate the victory over the Jews, with two triumphal arches erected to commemorate it, including the Arch of Titus , which still stands today. The treasures looted from

4025-476: A total population of 525,980. According to some estimates, the total population of the city proper prior to the siege was 435,000. Estimates of the population of Sarajevo after the siege ranged from 300,000 to 380,000. Sarajevo's population endured up to six months without gas, electricity or water supply during certain stages of the siege. After the war, the International Criminal Tribunal for

4186-480: A tunnel beneath the runway that ran between the Sarajevo neighborhoods of Dobrinja and Butmir . It would be known as the " Sarajevo Tunnel ". It would become the only land link besieged Sarajevo had with the rest of the world. Several hundred people died while running across the airstrip, which was the only way in or out of besieged Sarajevo before the Sarajevo War Tunnel was dug. The second half of 1992 and

4347-683: A unit of the Yugoslav Peoples Army (JNA) seized the airport of Sarajevo. It was under the direct control of Belgrade . In May 1992, units of the JNA stationed in Sarajevo found themselves repeatedly under attack. On 2 May, Bosniak forces consisting of the Green Berets and the Patriotic League, opened fire on a column of eight JNA MEDEVAC vehicles in Vojvode Stepe street. This attack caused

4508-584: A wall was built in order to make some innovation in public affairs." It was only completed later, to a lesser strength and in much haste, when the First Jewish–Roman War broke out and the defenses of Jerusalem had to be bolstered. Nine towers adorned the third wall. The First Jewish–Roman War , also known as the Great Jewish Revolt, broke following the appointment of prefect Gessius Florus and his demand to receive Temple funds. Nero entrusted

4669-420: Is already prohibited by international law . It can also be argued that urbicide, as destruction of urban spaces and human habitations, is made illegal under international law and humanitarian law through the effects of other laws dealing with destruction of human-made environment and people's dependency upon it. Such laws are the rights to adequate housing, the right to life and privacy, to mental integrity, and to

4830-465: Is later reflected in Christian writings, asserts that Titus explicitly authorized the destruction of the Temple, which was also functioning as a key fortress. Modern scholarship generally supports this latter account, although the issue remains debated. The Roman legions quickly crushed the remaining Jewish resistance. Some of the remaining Jews escaped through hidden tunnels and sewers, while others made

4991-475: Is no explicit language mentioning urbicide in international and humanitarian law. As the term has been coined and interpreted only recently, during the Yugoslav war in the 1990s, it has not reached public consciousness and public discourse to such extent as to be an instantiated into international law. If genocide and urbicide, however, are synonymous terms, as some theorists propose, it could be argued that urbicide

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5152-472: Is often closely related to genocide , as to destroy people's everyday lives is to destroy them. In his book Urbicide , Martin Coward argues along a similar line. Coward uses the term to denote "the destruction of buildings qua that which constitutes the conditions of possibility of a distinctively ‘urban’ existential quality... the urban is characterised by heterogeneity. Urbicide is thus an assault on buildings as

5313-458: Is striking in its abilities to literally unhinge the urban and rural poor from the collective structures integral to everyday, grounded existence in favor of dispersal, but without active state measures to reinstitute these people within governable spaces. Though Operation Murambatsvina has been seen as urbicidal, the question has been raised as to whether an urbicidal framework seeks a different subtext. Robert Templer and AlHakam Shaar proposed that

5474-561: Is the fact that the total destruction faced by the bombed cities was brief, and quickly reversed. Though total recovery took time, water and power were restored within a week and the population of Hiroshima surged from 89,000 to 169,000 in the six months following the bombing. Belfast city center's role during the Troubles fluctuated as the conflict evolved. From 1970 to 1974, the IRA targeted high-profile businesses, destroying 300 retail outlets and over

5635-566: The Diaspora . The Second Temple attracted tens and maybe hundreds of thousands during the Three Pilgrimage Festivals . The city reached a peak in size and population during the late Second Temple period, when the city covered two square kilometres ( 3 ⁄ 4 square mile) and had an estimated population of 200,000. In his Natural History , Pliny the Elder celebrated it as "by far,

5796-729: The German invasion of the Soviet Union , the German Army destroyed several cities in Soviet Union , causing a deliberate destruction of vital civilian infrastructure, including in Stalingrad . The city was firebombed with 1,000 tons of high explosives and incendiaries in 1,600 sorties on 23 August 1943. The aerial assault on Stalingrad was the most concentrated on the Ostfront according to Beevor, and

5957-615: The Israel-Hamas war when more than half of Gaza's buildings were damaged or destroyed by January 2024. The devastation goes beyond material boundaries; it becomes a social and cultural catastrophe. Fatina Abreek Zubiedat, an assistant professor at Tel Aviv University Azrieli School of Architecture said that the wanton destruction of Gaza is reducing the urban area into "an ahistorical entity, something present outside modernity and global experience". Human rights discourse provides another lens in which we can view urbicide, especially through

6118-615: The Judean provisional government The siege of Jerusalem of 70 CE was the decisive event of the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), in which the Roman army led by future emperor Titus besieged Jerusalem , the center of Jewish rebel resistance in the Roman province of Judaea . Following a five-month siege, the Romans destroyed the city, including the Second Jewish Temple . In April 70 CE, three days before Passover ,

6279-499: The Nazi occupation of Poland , Nazi Germany deliberately razed most of the city of Warsaw after the 1944 Warsaw Uprising . The uprising had infuriated German leaders, who decided to make an example of the city, although Nazi Germany had long selected Warsaw for major reconstruction as part of their Lebensraum policy and Generalplan Ost , the plans to Germanize Central and Eastern Europe and eliminate, ethnically cleanse , or enslave

6440-613: The RAM Plan was developed by the State Security Administration (SDB or SDS) and a group of selected Serb officers of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) with the purpose of organizing Serbs outside Serbia , consolidating control of the fledgling SDP, and the prepositioning of arms and ammunition. The plan was meant to prepare the framework for a third Yugoslavia in which all Serbs with their territories would live together in

6601-418: The Roman army started besieging Jerusalem. The city had been taken over by several rebel factions following a period of massive unrest and the collapse of a short-lived provisional government . Within three weeks, the Romans broke the first two walls of the city, but a stubborn rebel standoff prevented them from penetrating the third and thickest wall. According to Josephus , a contemporary historian and

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6762-538: The South Bronx . Frank D'Hont mentions a number of cases in late 21st century Europe, and criticises how Europeans urban planners neglected the preservation of the urban fabric "in times of war and conflict" under the assumption that conflict was not a problem in modern Europe. D'Hont included the Balkans (focusing on Kosovo ), Derry , Belfast, Nicosia , and even ghettoized areas of Paris. The Second World War saw some of

6923-711: The killings in Bijeljina came to light, the Bosnian government announced a general mobilisation call. The SDS responded that this call brought Sarajevo one step closer to war. On 4 April 1992, when Izetbegović ordered all reservists and police in Sarajevo to mobilize, and the SDS called for evacuation of the city's Serbs, there came the "definite rupture between the Bosnian government and Serbs". The following day, ethnic Serb policemen attacked police stations and an Interior Ministry training school. The attack killed two officers and one civilian. The Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina declared

7084-526: The referendum was 63.4% with 99.7% of voters choosing independence. Violence broke out in many places during and after the referendum. On 1 March, a gunman opened fire at a Bosnian Serb wedding procession in Baščaršija , Sarajevo's historical centre and a Bosniak section of the city. The guests were carrying and waving Serbian flags, an act which the Bosniaks, who mostly supported independence, interpreted as

7245-466: The 500-year-old Temple be spared. According to Josephus, it was the Jews who first used fire in the Northwest approach to the Temple to try and stop Roman advances. Only then did Roman soldiers set fire to an apartment adjacent to the Temple, starting a conflagration which the Jews subsequently made worse. Later Christian sources, traced back to Tacitus, claim that Titus personally authorized the destruction,

7406-553: The First Jewish–Roman War. The Jewish communities of Judea were devastated to an extent which some scholars describe as a genocide . However, the Jewish population remained strong in other parts of the land of Israel, thriving in Galilee , Golan, Bet Shean Valley, and the eastern, southern, and western edges of Judea. Emperor Hadrian wiped the name Judaea off the map and replaced it with Syria Palaestina . The Flavian dynasty celebrated

7567-600: The Flavian Amphitheater, built in Rome between 70 and 82 CE, is believed to have been partially financed by the spoils of the Roman victory over the Jews. Archaeological discoveries have found a block of travertine that bears dowel holes that show the Jewish Wars financed the building of the amphitheater. Judaea Capta coinage : Judaea Capta coins were a series of commemorative coins originally issued by Vespasian to celebrate

7728-451: The Herodian "second wall" (which was still standing), though it was itself surrounded by the new "third wall", built by king Agrippa I . Josephus stated that Agrippa wanted to build a wall at least 5 meters thick, literally impenetrable by contemporary siege engines. Agrippa, however, never moved beyond the foundations, out of fear of emperor Claudius "lest he should suspect that so strong

7889-458: The JNA to retreat to Serb-held positions in Lukavica district. On 2 May 1992, Bosnian Serb forces established a total blockade of the city. They blocked the major access roads, cutting supplies of food and medicine, and also cut off the city's utilities (e.g., water, electricity and heating). Although they possessed superior weaponry, they were greatly outnumbered by ARBiH soldiers who were defending

8050-517: The Mount of Olives, but Titus drove them back to the valley. Zealots set the north-west colonnade on fire (v. 165). The Romans set the next one on fire, and the Jews wanted it to burn (v. 166), and they also trapped some Roman soldiers when they wanted to climb over the wall. They had burned wood under the wall when Romans were trapped on it (v. 178–183). After Jewish allies killed a number of Roman soldiers, Josephus claims that Titus sent him to negotiate with

8211-598: The Republic Assembly building was broken up by shots that came from the nearby Holiday Inn . By the end of April, the form of the siege was largely established. The Serb-inhabited Sarajevan suburb of Ilidža saw heavy fighting between the local Serb forces on one side and various Bosniak forces on the other. The local Serbs soon formed the Ilidža Brigade, which became a part of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps of

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8372-468: The Roman valor had subdued; but for all the rest of the wall [surrounding Jerusalem], it was so thoroughly laid even with the ground by those that dug it up to the foundation, that there was left nothing to make those that came thither believe it [Jerusalem] had ever been inhabited. This was the end which Jerusalem came to by the madness of those that were for innovations; a city otherwise of great magnificence, and of mighty fame among all mankind. And truly,

8533-539: The Romans and bring a peaceful end to the siege. The most prominent of these was Yohanan ben Zakkai , whose students smuggled him out of the city in a coffin in order to deal with Vespasian. This, however, was insufficient to deal with the madness that had now gripped the Zealot leadership in Jerusalem and the reign of terror it unleashed upon the population of the city. Josephus describes various acts of savagery committed against

8694-626: The Russian military invasion has caused significant destruction of Ukrainian cities, with the goal of "destroying heterogeneous cultural and symbolic urban space and the diversity of the urban cultural heritage". During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine , the Russian Army destroyed even more cities in eastern Ukraine, causing a deliberate destruction of vital civilian infrastructure, including in Severodonetsk , Kramatorsk , Mariupol and Bakhmut . It

8855-513: The SDS, who charged that the SDA or the government was complicit in the shooting, as evidenced by their failure to arrest the suspects. An SDS spokesman claimed the wedding attack was evidence of the mortal danger Serbs would be subject to in an independent Bosnia. This statement was rejected by the founder of the Patriotic League , Sefer Halilović , who stated that the procession was not a wedding but

9016-506: The Sanctuary they pretended not even to hear Caesar's commands and urged the men in front to throw in more firebrands. The partisans were no longer in a position to help; everywhere was slaughter and flight. Most of the victims were peaceful citizens, weak and unarmed, butchered wherever they were caught. Round the Altar the heaps of corpses grew higher and higher, while down the Sanctuary steps poured

9177-573: The Serb forces around Sarajevo committed the massacre. In February 1994 (when air strikes were originally threatened), NATO had created a heavy weapons exclusion zone around Sarajevo, and collected weapons at a number of sites. On 5 August, the VRS seized several weapons from the Illidža Weapons Collection site in clear violation of the exclusion zone agreement. During the seizure, Serb forces injured

9338-470: The Serbs handed over the airport to UNPROFOR on 29 June. World public opinion was 'decisively and permanently against the Serbs' following media reports on the sniping and shelling. From 25 to 26 August, under command of Colonel Tomislav Šipčić , the Sarajevo City Hall was burned down by cannon fire from Serb positions. On 30 August 1992, an artillery shell crashed into a crowded marketplace on

9499-541: The Serbs ordered the UN soldiers to hand him over. The rear door was opened, and one of the Serbs fired seven shots at Turajlić from an automatic weapon. Six bullets struck him in the chest and arms, killing him instantly. A Bosnian Serb soldier, Goran Vasić, was eventually charged with Turajlić's murder but was ultimately acquitted of that charge in 2002. On 6 May 1993, the United Nations Security Council Resolution 824 declared that Sarajevo be

9660-581: The Temple Mount's walls were discovered laying over the Herodian street that runs along the Western Wall . Among these stones is the Trumpeting Place inscription , a monumental Hebrew inscription which was thrown down by Roman legionnaires during the destruction of the Temple. Josephus wrote that 1.1 million people, the majority of them Jewish, were killed during the siege – a death toll he attributes to

9821-483: The Temple are scant, those pertaining to the Temple Mount walls and their close vicinity, the Upper City, the western part of the city, and the Tyropoeon Valley are considerable. [...] It was found that in most cases the archaeological record coincides with the historical description, pointing to Josephus' reliability". In the 1970s and 1980s, a team led by Nahman Avigad discovered traces of great fire that damaged

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9982-484: The Temple were put on display. The destruction of Jerusalem marked a major turning point in Jewish history . The loss of the mother-city and Second Temple necessitated a reshaping of Jewish culture to ensure its survival. With sacrificial worship no longer possible, Jewish practices shifted to prayer , Torah study , and synagogue gatherings. According to Rabbinic tradition , Yohanan ben Zakkai escaped Jerusalem during

10143-408: The Trojan women console themselves that their loved ones died for something real, in defense of their city—unlike the Greek heroes, who lived and died for conquest, for booty, for plunder, for nothing at all. In later times the Roman Empire imposed the complete destruction of Jerusalem (70 CE) and a similarly devastating Carthaginian peace (146 BCE), though these proved less than permanent. Carthage

10304-586: The UN's Article 25 which says: Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. The government forcibly removed these citizens from where they were living knowingly displaced them, leaving them without resources and access to food, shelter and health care. As of now there

10465-494: The Upper City's residential buildings. The fires consumed all organic matter. In houses where there was a beamed ceiling between the floors, the fire caused the top of the building to collapse, along with the top rows of stone, and they buried everything that remained in the home under them. There are buildings where traces remain only in part of the house, and there are buildings that have been completely burned. Calcium oxides have been discovered in several locations, indicating that

10626-399: The VRS. In the months leading up to the war, JNA forces in the region began to mobilize in the hills surrounding Sarajevo. Artillery, together with other ordnance and equipment that would prove key in the coming siege of the city, was deployed at this time. In April 1992, the Bosnian government under Izetbegović demanded that the Yugoslav government remove these forces. Slobodan Milošević ,

10787-430: The agreement and ambushed the departing JNA convoy , which embittered all sides. A ceasefire and agreement on evacuation of the JNA was signed on 18 May, while on 20 May the Bosnian presidency declared the JNA an occupation force. The JNA attacked the Ministry of Training Academy in Vraca, the central tramway depot, and the Old Town district with mortars , artillery and tank fire. The Bosnian government had expected

10948-501: The arrest of Izetbegović, who was detained at Sarajevo Airport by Yugoslav police the previous day. The attack started with the convoy being separated when a car was driven into it. Then sporadic and disorganized fighting took place for several minutes in and around the convoy. 6–42 soldiers were killed in the incident. General Milutin Kukanjac , the commander of the JNA in Sarajevo, confirmed that just in Dobrovoljačka street alone four officers, one soldier and one civilian were killed in

11109-428: The attack. General Lewis MacKenzie , the UN peacekeeper in Sarajevo and who was in the convoy described what he saw: "I could see the Territorial Defense soldiers push the rifles through the windows of civilians' cars, which were part of the convoy, and shoot [...] I saw blood flow down the windshields. It was definitely the worst day of my life." In the Documentary The Death of Yugoslavia Lewis MacKenzie described how

11270-411: The battering rams in that place where John had used his stratagem before, and had undermined their banks, that the ground then gave way, and the wall fell down suddenly." (v. 28) Following this, Titus had raised banks beside the court of the Temple: on the north-west corner, on the north side, and on the west side (v. 150). Josephus goes on to say that the Jews then attacked the Romans on the east, near

11431-416: The breakdown of traditional norms and leadership hierarchies and a loss of meaning in life as commonalities throughout both ancient and modern literature. For Euripides, even if there is no meaning in the universe, one's city itself turns out to be a source of meaning. Even if it is burning down—maybe especially when it is burning down—the bonds between us and our city can give our lives some solid value. Thus

11592-422: The broad definitions of structural violence that often enter discourses on urbicide. They could presumably make their way into the legal discourses, as well. The lack of explicit terminology that would address the destruction of cities in legal terms on the international level makes it unlikely that the international courts will take the issue more seriously. The problem is also with the enforcement of these laws on

11753-504: The capture of Judaea and the destruction of the Temple by his son Titus. In Jewish tradition , the annual fast day of Tisha B'Av marks the destruction of the First and Second Temples, which according to Jewish tradition, occurred on the same day on the Hebrew calendar . In the centuries following the destruction of the Temple, some Jewish communities adopted a new Hebrew calendar that designated

11914-472: The case of Sarajevo , where the case of genocide, as legally understood, could not be unequivocally applied to cases such as the Siege of Sarajevo , the concept of urbicide might provide a better interpretive framework for the violence inflicted upon the Sarajevo populace and their urban environment, such as the shared public space and the architecture of the city. The goal of such violence may have not been to destroy

12075-428: The celebration of Passover . Josephus goes on to report that after the Romans killed the armed and elderly people, 97,000 were enslaved. Josephus records that many people were sold into slavery, and that of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, 40,000 individuals survived, and the emperor let them to go wherever they chose. Before and during the siege, according to Josephus' account, there were multiple waves of desertions from

12236-453: The city "looks more and more like the western front as time goes by". The Troubles reshaped Northern Ireland's urban landscape, as cities and towns were fortified with steel barriers, iron shutters, and "bomb-proof" buildings. These measures, along with the constant threat of paramilitary attacks, stripped away the normalcy of urban life. The policy of "normalisation" gradually removed military structures and defensive facilities since 1994, but

12397-566: The city and perished during the siege. Many of the people of the surrounding area are also thought to have been driven from the land or enslaved. Titus and his soldiers celebrated victory upon their return to Rome by parading the Menorah and Table of the Bread of God's Presence through the streets. Up until this parading, these items had only ever been seen by the High Priest of the Temple. This event

12558-537: The city. The Roman historian Tacitus later wrote: "... the total number of the besieged of every age and both sexes was six hundred thousand; there were arms for all who could use them, and the number ready to fight was larger than could have been anticipated from the total population. Both men and women showed the same determination; and if they were to be forced to change their home, they feared life more than death". Josephus' death toll figures have been rejected as impossible by Seth Schwartz , who estimates that about

12719-421: The city. After numerous JNA armored columns failed to take the city, the Serbs began to concentrate their efforts on weakening it by using continual bombardment from at least 200 reinforced positions and bunkers in the surrounding hills. On 3 May 1992, members of the ARBiH attacked a convoy of withdrawing JNA soldiers on Dobrovoljačka Street in Sarajevo. The attack is thought to have been in retaliation for

12880-481: The commandant of the Bosnian police academy arrested the previous day with the takeover of the academy. Bosnia and Herzegovina received international recognition on 6 April 1992. The most common view is that the war started that day. On 6 April, Serb forces began shelling Sarajevo, and in the next two days crossed the Drina from Serbia proper and besieged Bosniak-majority Zvornik , Višegrad and Foča . All of Bosnia

13041-506: The conditions of possibility of heterogeneity." Coward says that urbicide follows an anti-urban logic inherent in the politics of ethnic nationalism: Insofar as urbanity, and in particular the buildings that are its conditions of possibility, reveals the ineluctably shared and heterogeneous nature of existence (our being-in-common), it comprises a constant, agonistic provocation to the ontopolitics of ethnic nationalism. In order to assert its appeal to an origin, ethnic nationalism thus strikes at

13202-471: The conditions of possibility of the agonism that constantly provokes it: the (built) things that constitute existence as fundamentally shared (a being-in-common). Urbicide therefore shares the annihilatory character of genocide, but not its focus on human beings as the object of destruction. Urbicide can also include can also include non-military forms of urban destruction, such as white flight , urban renewal or gentrification , if they are "characterised by

13363-437: The convoy split in half: "I believe a red Volkswagen took off and driven across the intersection and blocked and split the convoy in two." General Jovan Divijak , a commander for the ARBiH in Sarajevo, tried to stop the shooting and calm things down. Shellings of Sarajevo on 24, 26, 28 and 29 May were attributed to Mladić by Boutros-Ghali . Civilian casualties of a 27 May shelling of the city led to Western intervention, in

13524-589: The crime rate skyrocketed. During the first year of the siege, the 10th Mountain Division of the ARBiH, led by a rogue commander, Mušan Topalović , engaged in a campaign of mass executions of Serb civilians who still lived within the Bosniak-held areas. Many of the victims were transported to the Kazani pit near Sarajevo, where they were executed and buried in a mass grave. Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE) Remnants of

13685-449: The criminalization of urbicide risks exonerating by inaction the governments often implicated as aggressors against the city and its citizens. It is often against their power interest to prosecute urbicide or to establish any form of judicial framework that deals explicitly with violations of such nature. The inclusion of governments into the process is desirable, but their willingness to submit to another kind of scrutiny: particularly under

13846-562: The culture and feeling of the city. They must be taken into account when the urbicidal effects of bombings and military actions in the region are being examined because they show that the conflict was more than simply destroying the physical city buildings; there was destruction of people, their safety and of their communities. At least 700,000 Zimbabweans were forced from their urban homes and were left to create new lives for themselves during Operation Murambatsvina in May 2005. Many say this breaks

14007-418: The defenders; this ended with Jews wounding the negotiator with an arrow, and another sally was launched shortly after. Titus was almost captured during this sudden attack, but escaped. Overlooking the Temple compound, the fortress provided a perfect point from which to attack the Temple itself. Battering rams made little progress, but the fighting itself eventually set the walls on fire; a Roman soldier threw

14168-466: The deliberate destruction of Aleppo during the Battle of Aleppo was a form of "urbicide". In 2017, retired US Army officer and urban-warfare researcher John Spencer listed Mosul as one of the cities destroyed by violent combat, joining battles such as Stalingrad , Huế , Grozny , Aleppo and Raqqa. Around 80% of Raqqa had been left "uninhabitable" after the battle, according to the UN. Since 2014,

14329-520: The destruction of Tenochtitlán (1521) and Moscow (1812) as examples of premodern urbicide. The Mongols under Genghis Khan 's leadership destroyed many cities, including Merv in Central Asia. The American cities were victims of the 1970s global recession, aggravated by the decline of government and private investment, which resulted in urban decay described as the "age of rubble". This situation led to ghettoization and exodus in large areas like

14490-452: The destruction of essential foundations of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves". This term, however, failed to address violence not aimed at human bodies. The first recorded use of the term "urbicide" was by Michael Moorcock in the Elric novella "Dead God's Homecoming" ( Science Fantasy #59, Nova Publishing, June 1963). In the wake of the destruction of Sarajevo,

14651-466: The earliest and most extreme examples of the aerial destruction of cities such as Dresden , Tokyo , Hiroshima and Nagasaki . The development of air warfare and aerial bombardment and nuclear weapons made cities and their infrastructure into targets of war in a new and devastating way. Tokyo is known as the city that, on the night of March 9–10, 1945, during a raid by the US Armed Forces ,

14812-517: The eastern Croatian city of Vukovar led by the Yugoslav People's Army , supported by various Serbian paramilitary forces between August and November 1991 during the Croatian War of Independence . Vukovar suffered an indiscriminate bombardment, in which up to a million shells were fired on the city, Three quarters of the city's buildings were destroyed. Among them were schools , hospitals , churches , public institutions’ facilities, factories,

14973-528: The end of the tri-ethnic coalition that had governed after the 1990 elections. This Assembly established the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina on 9 January 1992, which became the Republika Srpska in August 1992. The declaration of Bosnian sovereignty was followed by a referendum for independence on 29 February and 1 March 1992, which was boycotted by the vast majority of Serbs. The turnout in

15134-523: The entire city and Temple, but should leave as many of the towers standing as they were of the greatest eminence; that is, Phasaelus, and Hippicus, and Mariamne; and so much of the wall enclosed the city on the west side. This wall was spared, in order to afford a camp for such as were to lie in garrison [in the Upper City], as were the towers [the three forts] also spared, in order to demonstrate to posterity what kind of city it was, and how well fortified, which

15295-1115: The extremes of the new levels of destruction made possible by modern military technology. Five square miles of Hiroshima were destroyed in seconds, with 90% of the city's 76,000 buildings destroyed. The urban fabric of Nagasaki faced a similar fate. A notable characteristic of the atomic bombings was the totality of the destruction; the way that "the whole of society was laid waste to its very foundations." Destroyed, that is, were not only men, women and thousands of children but also restaurants and inns, laundries, theater groups, sports clubs, sewing clubs, boys' clubs, girls' clubs, love affairs, trees and gardens, grass, gates, gravestones, temples and shrines, family heirlooms, radios, classmates, books, courts of law, clothes, pets, groceries and markets, telephones, personal letters, automobiles, bicycles, horses—120 war-horses—musical instruments, medicines and medical equipment, life savings, eyeglasses, city records, sidewalks, family scrapbooks, monuments, engagements, marriages, employees, clocks and watches, public transportation, street signs, parents, works of art. Also notable

15456-455: The fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the city and its temple, there were still a few Judean strongholds in which the rebels continued holding out, at Herodium , Machaerus , and Masada . Both Herodium and Machaerus fell to the Roman army within the next two years, with Masada remaining as the final stronghold of the Judean rebels. In 73 CE, the Romans breached the walls of Masada and captured

15617-494: The fall of Jerusalem by building two monumental triumphal arches. The Arch of Titus , which stills stands today, was built c. 82 CE by the Roman Emperor Domitian on Via Sacra , Rome , to commemorate the siege and fall of Jerusalem. The bas-relief on the arch depicts soldiers carrying spoils from the Temple, including the Menorah , during a victory procession . A second, less known Arch of Titus constructed at

15778-549: The fire until they could not be recovered in the laboratory. In contrast, pottery and basalt survived. The layer of ash and charred wood left over from the fires reached an average height of about a meter, and the rock falls reached up to two meters and more. The great urban drainage channel and the Pool of Siloam in the Lower City silted up and stopped working, and the city walls collapsed in numerous places. Massive stone collapses from

15939-489: The first half of 1993 were the height of the siege of Sarajevo, and atrocities were committed during heavy fighting. Serb forces outside the city continuously shelled the government defenders. Inside the city, the Serbs controlled most of the major military positions and the supply of arms. With snipers taking up positions in the city, signs reading Pazite, Snajper! ("Beware, Sniper!") became commonplace and certain particularly dangerous streets, most notably Ulica Zmaja od Bosne,

16100-407: The flames spread into the residential sections of the city. Josephus described the scene: As the legions charged in, neither persuasion nor threat could check their impetuosity: passion alone was in command. Crowded together around the entrances many were trampled by their friends, many fell among the still hot and smoking ruins of the colonnades and died as miserably as the defeated. As they neared

16261-406: The form of sanctions imposed on 30 May through United Nations Security Council Resolution 757 . That same day Bosnian forces attacked the JNA barracks in the city, which was followed by heavy shelling. On 5 and 6 June the last JNA personnel left the city during heavy street fighting and shelling. The 20 June cease-fire, executed to allow the UN takeover of Sarajevo Airport for humanitarian flights,

16422-492: The former Yugoslavia (ICTY) convicted four Serb officials for numerous counts of crimes against humanity which they committed during the siege, including terrorism . Stanislav Galić and Dragomir Milošević were sentenced to life imprisonment and 29 years imprisonment respectively. Their superiors, Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić , were also convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. From its establishment after World War II until its breakup in 1991 and 1992,

16583-505: The fortress, with Josephus claiming that nearly all of the Jewish defenders had committed mass suicide prior to the entry of the Romans. With the fall of Masada, the First Jewish–Roman War came to an end. In 132 CE, six decades after the suppression of the revolt, another revolt known as the Bar Kokhba revolt erupted in Judaea. The construction of a Roman colony named Aelia Capitolina over

16744-422: The freedom of movement. The most salient example of Sarajevo , where the term urbicide partly originated, clearly demonstrates the violation of these basic human rights on the civilian population of the city. Testimonies of the urbicide in Sarajevo, in the cultural production of confessional literature during the siege, clearly show the dramatic plunge in the standard of living, the overtaking and militarization of

16905-511: The government of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia suppressed the nationalist sentiments which existed among the many ethnic and religious groups which comprised the population of the country, a policy which prevented the occurrence of chaos and the breakup of the state. When Yugoslavia's longtime leader Marshal Josip Broz Tito died in 1980, this policy of containment underwent a dramatic reversal. Nationalism experienced

17066-617: The growing Christian sect within Judaism. The destruction was an important point in the separation of Christianity from its Jewish roots : many Christians responded by distancing themselves from the rest of Judaism, as reflected in the Gospels , which described Jesus as anti-Temple. Christians understood the events of 70 CE as a fulfilment of his prediction that the temple would be destroyed (in Matthew 24 , Luke 21 , Mark 13 ); some also saw it as

17227-548: The heaviest. Since March 2024, a dozen energy facilities were destroyed by Russian attacks , causing shortages of electricity and running water for millions of Ukrainians. In 2024, the UN estimated that Ukraine will need $ 486 billion for reconstructing the damage done by the Russian destruction, including for two million destroyed homes (accounting for 10% of Ukraine's housing network). Israeli destruction of cities in Palestine has been described as an urbicide, particularly Gaza during

17388-720: The international community to deploy a peacekeeping force following recognition, but it did not materialize in time to prevent war from breaking out across the country. Bosnian Serb and JNA troops overwhelmed the poorly equipped and unprepared Bosnian security forces to take control of large areas of Bosnian territory, beginning with attacks on Bosniak civilians in the east. Serb military, police and paramilitary forces attacked towns and villages and then, sometimes assisted by local Serb residents, applied what soon became their standard operating procedure: Bosniak houses and apartments were systematically ransacked or burned; civilians were rounded up, some beaten or killed; and men were separated from

17549-581: The international level, which have previously unenforced, even the human rights laws already in place. Decisions of the International court , such as the case of reparations to Bosnia by the Serbian government for crimes against humanity , in which the court, in February 2007, acquitted Serbia of the duty to give reparations, perhaps demonstrate the further need to distinguish between urbicide and genocide . In

17710-409: The job of crushing the rebellion in Judaea to Vespasian , a talented and unassuming general. In early 68 CE, Vespasian landed at Ptolemais and began suppression of the revolt with operations in the Galilee . By July 69 all of Judea but Jerusalem had been pacified and the city, now hosting rebel leaders from all over the country, came under Roman siege. A fortified stronghold, it might have held for

17871-492: The legacy of conflict is still visible, however, through urban segregation; Belfast's physical infrastructure was weaponized, with walls used to isolate neighborhoods. The impact of this division preexisted the conflict and continued beyond it. Indeed, ten years after the Good Friday Agreement , Belfast remained a "physically and mentally" fragmented city. The siege of Vukovar was an 87-day military campaign aimed against

18032-411: The main source for the war, the city was ravaged by murder, famine , and cannibalism . On Tisha B'Av , 70 CE (August 30), Roman forces overwhelmed the defenders and set fire to the Temple. Resistance continued for another month, but eventually the upper and lower parts of the city were taken as well, and the city was burned to the ground. Titus spared only the three towers of the Herodian citadel as

18193-436: The main street which eventually leads to the airport, were known as " sniper alleys ". The sniper killings of Admira Ismić and Boško Brkić, a mixed Bosnian-Serbian couple who tried to cross the lines, became a symbol of the suffering in the city and the basis of Romeo and Juliet in Sarajevo , but it is unknown from which side the snipers opened fire. Within Bosniak-held areas of Sarajevo, public services quickly collapsed and

18354-591: The medieval Eltz Castle and the house of the Nobel laureate scientist Lavoslav Ružička . Several sources, like the Youth Initiative for Human Rights in Serbia, described the systematic destruction of the city as urbicide. Youth Initiative for Human Rights in Serbia also criticized the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 2009 for not reaching a verdict for the destruction of Vukovar. Slobodan Milošević

18515-514: The most famous of the cities of the East". In the early Roman period, Jerusalem had two distinct precincts. The first encompassed the regions within the "first wall", the City of David and the Upper City, and was heavily built up, though less so at its wealthy parts. The second, known as the "suburb" or " Bethesda ", lay north of the first and was sparsely populated. It contained that section of Jerusalem within

18676-633: The native Polish and Slavic populations. The Nazis dedicated an unprecedented effort to destroy the city. Their decision tied up considerable resources which could have been used at the Eastern Front and at the newly-opened Western Front following the Normandy landings . The Germans destroyed 80–90% of Warsaw's buildings and deliberately demolished, burned, or stole an immense part of its cultural heritage, completely destroying Warsaw's Old Town . The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrated

18837-443: The people by its own leadership, including the torching of the city's food supply in an apparent bid to force the defenders to fight for their lives. The enmities between John of Gischala and Simon bar Giora were papered over only when the Roman siege engineers began to erect ramparts . Titus then had a wall built to girdle the city in order to starve out the population more effectively. After several failed attempts to breach or scale

18998-496: The perpetrator was the VRS. UNPROFOR launched its humanitarian airlift operations, providing Sarajevo with much-needed supplies from mid-1992 to the beginning of 1995. More than 13,000 flights were made over the course of more than three years. It was the most airlifts to a capital city since the Berlin airlifts . While capitalizing on the fact that the airport was under the control of UNPROFOR, defenders of Sarajevo began digging

19159-413: The place before, had come on a sudden to it now, would he have known it again. But though he [a foreigner] were at the city itself, yet would he have inquired for it. Over the years, various remains that provide evidence of Jerusalem's destruction have been discovered, leading scholars to believe that Josephus' description is accurate. Ronny Reich wrote that "While remains relating to the destruction of

19320-403: The president of Serbia, agreed only to withdraw individuals who originated from outside Bosnia's borders, an insignificant number. JNA soldiers who were ethnic Serbs from Bosnia were transferred to the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) under the command of General Ratko Mladić , with the VRS having rescinded its allegiance to Bosnia a few days after Bosnia seceded from Yugoslavia. On 5 April 1992,

19481-702: The public space, and the daily struggle of the citizens to get basic supplies such as food and water. In other cases, such as the Porta Farm evacuation and demolition of settlements by the Harare local government, there is evidence of violation of these basic human rights as specified by the International Law and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Despite the specified violations, however, it might be useful to apply, as with genocide ,

19642-403: The right to life, liberty and security of person and Article 5 states that no one shall be subjected to torture, or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. However, 20,000 Muslim women and girls were raped by Serbs , thousands were missing and/or executed. When using the term urbicide, human rights should be included because atrocities against the civilian population also affect

19803-582: The rise of Christianity as a new, separate religion. After the war, Legio X Fretensis established a military camp on Jerusalem's ruins. the city was later re-founded as the Roman colony of Aelia Capitolina . Foreign cults were introduced and Jews were forbidden entry. This is often seen as a catalyst for the Bar Kokhba revolt . During the Second Temple Period , Jerusalem was the center of religious and national life for Jews, including those in

19964-504: The ruins of Jerusalem and the construction of a temple to Jupiter on the Temple Mount are thought to have been major catalysts for the revolt. Supported by the Sanhedrin , Simon Bar Kosiba (later known as Bar Kokhba) established an independent state that was conquered by the Romans in 135 CE. The revolt resulted in the extensive depopulation of Judean communities, more so than during

20125-630: The same state. Alarmed, the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia on 15 October 1991, shortly followed by the establishment of the Serbian National Assembly by Bosnian Serbs. The Serb members of parliament, consisting mainly of Serb Democratic Party (SDP) members, abandoned the central parliament in Sarajevo, and formed the Assembly of the Serb People of Bosnia and Herzegovina on 24 October 1991, which marked

20286-424: The security measures significantly disrupted shopping and daily life, with bag searches and bus inspections becoming commonplace. Non-parking areas, permanent checkpoints, army foot patrols, armoured vehicles, bollards, barbed wire, shop windows covered with tape and tilted surfaces placed over windowsills turned the city center into a fortified zone. Local press at the time (1972) observed with certain black humor that

20447-519: The siege and secured Roman permission to establish a study center in Yavneh , This event was foundational in the development of Rabbinic Judaism , which emerged from Pharisaic traditions and eventually became the mainstream form of Judaism. Jewish sects such as the Sadducees and Essenes faded into obscurity, while surviving followers of Jesus of Nazareth continued to spread his teachings, leading to

20608-541: The south, the 14 Division/1st managed to push the Serbs back to Route Viper and captured the most land from the offensive. On 28 August 1995 at around 11:00 ( Central European Time ), five shells were fired onto the Markale Market, causing the 2nd Markale massacre. Casualties were fewer however, 43 died and 73 were wounded. But just several hours prior to the attack, Bosnian Serb authorities tentatively expressed their will to accept Richard Holbrooke 's peace plan. Again

20769-670: The southeast entrance to the Circus Maximus was built by the Senate in 82 CE. Only a few traces of it remain today. In 75 CE, the Temple of Peace , also known as the Forum of Vespasian, was built under Emperor Vespasian in Rome. The monument was built to celebrate the conquest of Jerusalem and it is said to have housed the Temple Menorah from Herod's Temple . The Colosseum , otherwise known as

20930-501: The surrounding hills. From there they assaulted the city with artillery, tanks, and small arms. From 2 May 1992, the Serbs blockaded the city. At least 500,000 bombs were dropped on the city. Units of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) inside the city, who numbered around 70,000 troops, without heavy weapons or armor, defended much of the urban area of the city throughout

21091-544: The term "urbicide" finds its genesis in the urban destruction and targeting associated with the Bosnian Wars of the early 1990s, its meaning(s) develops historically and in the present. Recent events in Zimbabwe , while falling under the definition of urbicide as selective violence and destruction against cities, also positions urbicide outside the dynamics of genocidal warfare. Operation Murambatsvina or "Operation Restore Order"

21252-523: The term gained more common usage, examples being found in the works of Marshall Berman (1987) and Bogdan Bogdanović . In their 1992 publication "Mostar '92", a group of Bosnian architects from Mostar used the term urbicide to define the violence against the city fabric, such as the destruction of the Mostar bridge, a usage consistent with Marshall Berman 's prior use of the term to describe similar acts of violence in Bosnia . Scholars have argued that urbicide

21413-462: The town of Bosanski Brod . Eleven Serbs were killed in the village of Sijekovac outside of Brod on 26 March, and the SDS claimed they were massacred by a Croat-Bosniak militia. The town was besieged and shelled by the JNA and Serbian paramilitaries on 29 March. There were further clashes in Bijeljina , which was attacked by a Serb force led by Serb Volunteer Guard . On 4 April, as the information of

21574-491: The two prominent Zealot leaders, placed all blame for the failure of the revolt on the shoulders of the moderate leadership. John of Gischala 's group murdered another faction leader, Eleazar ben Simon , whose men were entrenched in the forecourts of the Temple. The Zealots resolved to prevent the city from falling into Roman hands by all means necessary, including the murder of political opponents and anyone standing in their way. There were still those wishing to negotiate with

21735-511: The umbrella term urbicide for these and other cases of urban destruction. The prospects for a codified prohibition of urbicide might benefit from differentiating the term's legal articulation from human rights law, just as urbicide conceptually separates itself from human rights . With the city as the site of urbicide, the traditional nation-state parties to international legislation might not suffice alone as stake-holders in any legal process, customary or otherwise. However, too much localizing of

21896-540: The use of The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights . Using the term urbicide, usually refers to violence and destruction of buildings and architecture, but when also using the UN's Declaration along with urbicide, the focus is instead on people. Looking at violent acts and observing how they affect people, their culture and their safety inevitably centers on human rights and may often carry more validity for these urbicidal acts to also be cases of human rights violations. The following cases are viewed here with

22057-448: The very view itself was a melancholy thing; for those places which were adorned with trees and pleasant gardens, were now become desolate country every way, and its trees were all cut down. Nor could any foreigner that had formerly seen Judaea and the most beautiful suburbs of the city, and now saw it as a desert, but lament and mourn sadly at so great a change. For the war had laid all signs of beauty quite waste. Nor had anyone who had known

22218-650: The wake of this violence, Sarajevo's civilians also became victims of human rights offenses including rape, execution, and starvation. The Bosnian government declared the siege over in 1996. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) convicted four Serb officials for numerous counts of crimes against humanity which they committed during the siege, including terrorism . Stanislav Galić and Dragomir Milošević were sentenced to life imprisonment and 29 years imprisonment respectively. Their superiors, Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić , were also convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. While

22379-542: The walls of the Fortress of Antonia , the Romans finally launched a secret attack. Despite early successes in repelling the Roman sieges, the Zealots fought amongst themselves, and they lacked proper leadership, resulting in poor discipline, training, and preparation for the battles that were to follow. At one point they destroyed the food stocks in the city, a drastic measure thought to have been undertaken perhaps in order to enlist

22540-470: The war but were unable to break the siege. The siege was lifted following the signing of the Dayton Agreement on 14 December 1995. A total of 13,952 people were killed during the siege, including 5,434 civilians. The ARBiH sustained 6,137 fatalities, while Bosnian Serb military casualties numbered 2,241 killed soldiers. The 1991 census indicates that before the siege, the city and its surrounding areas had

22701-468: The western edge of Sarajevo. The resulting explosion killed 15 people and wounded 100 others. On 8 January 1993, Hakija Turajlić , the Deputy Prime Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was assassinated by a Bosnian Serb soldier. Turajlić, who had gone to Sarajevo Airport to greet a Turkish delegation, was returning to the city in a United Nations armored vehicle that had taken him there when

22862-450: The widespread deliberate destruction of buildings in order to disavow of agonism in and through the constitution of antagonism." Marshall Berman , an American Marxist writer and political theorist, acknowledges the relatively recent inception of the term urbicide, and the subsequent study of urban destruction as a distinct phenomenon. However, Berman asserts that urbicide has existed as long as cities have, calling it "the oldest story in

23023-400: The women. Many of the men were forcibly removed to prison camps . The women were incarcerated in detention centres in extremely unhygienic conditions and suffered numerous severe abuses. Many were repeatedly raped . Survivors testified that Serb soldiers and police would visit the detention centres, select one or more women, take them out and rape them. On 22 April, a peace rally in front of

23184-495: The world." Berman cites Euripides ' tragedy The Trojan Women and the Old Testament books of Jeremiah and Lamentations as some of the earliest recorded musings on the nature and meaning of urbicide. He cites themes such as the breakdown of everyday life, the inability to care for oneself, and the suffering of one's children and inability to care for or comfort them as persistent themes in urbicides of all eras. Berman also sees

23345-464: The year of the Temple's destruction as the starting point. In Zoara , located south of the Dead Sea, this dating system was uniformly used in the Jewish section of the cemetery. One inscription, for example, belonging to a woman named Marsa, says she "she died on the fifth day, 17 days into the month of Elul, the fourth year of shemitah , 362 years after the destruction of the Temple." This calendar system

23506-441: Was a countrywide program of targeted violence against cities, towns, peripheral urban areas, and resettled farms, resulting in the destruction of housing, trading markets, and other "collective" structures. It was a large-scale operation, strategically resulting in the displacement of over 700,000 refugees, and "knowingly" manufacturing a massive humanitarian crisis. Beyond the obvious violations of human rights, Operation Murambatsvina

23667-480: Was a prolonged blockade of Sarajevo , the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina , during the Bosnian War . After it was initially besieged by the forces of the Yugoslav People's Army , the city was then besieged by the Army of Republika Srpska . Lasting from 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996 (1,425 days), it was three times longer than the Battle of Stalingrad , more than a year longer than the siege of Leningrad , and

23828-535: Was broken as both sides battled for control of the territory between the city and airport. The airport crisis led to Boutros-Ghali's ultimatum on 26 June, that the Serbs stop attacks on the city, allow the UN to take control of the airport, and place their heavy weapons under UN supervision. Meanwhile, media reported that President George H. W. Bush considered the use of force in Bosnia. French President Francois Mitterrand visited Sarajevo on 28–29 June. Undramatically,

23989-506: Was described by the New Lines Institute as follows: "from the onset of Russian President Vladimir Putin ’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia has engaged in a sustained and systematic campaign of urbicide". The Russian Army also perpetrated wanton destruction of Ukrainian cities and cultural destruction, including confiscating and burning Ukrainian books, historical archives, and damaging more than 240 Ukrainian heritage sites. 90% of Mariupol

24150-453: Was destroyed by the Russian 2022 siege. Marinka and Popasna were similarly completely destroyed and were described as "post-apocalyptic wasteland" and "ghost towns". From February to June 2022, 27 Ukrainian cities were subjected to Russian shelling, bombing or street fighting every 10 days, 7 cities every fourth day, while four cities were subjected to it every second day. Moreover, cities with higher signs of Ukrainian identity were targeted

24311-554: Was engulfed in war by mid-April. There were some efforts to halt violence. On 27 April, the Bosnian government ordered the JNA to be put under civilian control or expelled, which was followed by a series of conflicts in early May between the two. On 2 May, the Green Berets and local gang members fought back a disorganized Serb attack aimed at cutting Sarajevo in two. On 3 May, Izetbegović was kidnapped at Sarajevo Airport by JNA officers, and used to gain safe passage of JNA troops from downtown Sarajevo. However, Bosniak forces dishonoured

24472-439: Was in fact intended as a provocation. On 2 March, Serb paramilitaries set up barricades and positioned snipers near Sarajevo's parliament building , but their coup d'état was thwarted by thousands of Sarajevo citizens who took to the streets and placed themselves in front of the snipers. Armed Bosniaks known as " Green Berets " also erected barricades in and around Sarajevo. More barricades appeared near Banja Luka , and

24633-565: Was indicted for, inter alia, "wanton destruction" of the city, but died before a verdict was reached. Goran Hadžić was also indicted in the same category and also died while awaiting trial in 2016. Violence in Sarajevo was a product of the Bosnian War , which lasted from 1992–1995 in which Serb forces of the Republika Srpska and the Yugoslav People's Army besieged Sarajevo. This region

24794-468: Was memorialized in the Arch of Titus . Some 700 Judean prisoners were paraded through the streets of Rome in chains during the triumph, among them Simon bar Giora and John of Giscala. Simon bar Giora was executed by being thrown to his death from the Tarpeian Rock at the Temple of Jupiter after being judged a rebel and a traitor, while John of Giscala was sentenced to life imprisonment . After

24955-423: Was sacked and rebuilt many times, but did not remain in ruin until Muslim armies established the port of Tunis a few miles away, diverting trade and population away from the ancient city. In the case of Jerusalem, a small Roman colony was established on its ruins a few decades after the Jewish war , but the city only surpassed its pre-war size eighteen centuries later, in the 19th century. Other authors have cited

25116-401: Was subjected to the most destructive and deadly non-nuclear bombing in human history. 41 km² of central Tokyo was destroyed and a quarter of the city burned to the ground, leaving approximately 100,000 civilians dead and more than a million homeless. By comparison, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, resulted in the deaths of approximately 70,000 to 150,000 people. During

25277-469: Was the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare . When Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia after the 1992 Bosnian independence referendum , the Bosnian Serbs —whose strategic goal was to create a new Bosnian Serb state of Republika Srpska (RS) that would include Bosniak -majority areas —encircled Sarajevo with a siege force of 13,000 stationed in

25438-556: Was the single most intense aerial bombardment on the Eastern Front at that point. At least 90% of the housing stock was obliterated during the first week of the bombing, with an estimated 40,000 killed. The city [Warsaw] must completely disappear from the surface of the earth and serve only as a transport station for the Wehrmacht. No stone can remain standing. Every building must be razed to its foundation. SS chief Heinrich Himmler , SS officers' conference, 17 October 1944 During

25599-568: Was thronged with many people who had come to celebrate Passover . The thrust of the siege began in the west at the Third Wall, north of the Jaffa Gate . By May, this was breached and the Second Wall also was taken shortly afterwards, leaving the defenders in possession of the Temple and the upper and lower city. The Jewish defenders were split into factions. Simon Bar Giora and John of Giscala ,

25760-526: Was used by other Jewish communities in the Levant during late antiquity, and later in the Jewish diaspora , serving as a means to mark significant life events such as births and marriages. The Jewish Amoraim attributed the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem as punishment from God for the "baseless" hatred that pervaded Jewish society at the time. Many Jews in despair are thought to have abandoned Judaism for some version of paganism, and many others sided with

25921-411: Was very ethnically diverse, providing homes for both Serbs and Muslim Slavs. The violence is sometimes referred to as ethnic cleansing which ended in some of the worst violence this region has ever seen. Ultimately, urbicide resulted in the complete annihilation of Sarajevo's built environment . This broke down the city's infrastructure and denied thousands of civilians food, water, medicine, etc. In

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