what is sniper alley

what is sniper alley

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Sniper Alley is an informal name given to a portion of the main boulevard in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was lined with Serbian snipers posts during the Bosnian War. The area was highly dangerous for civilians, and people would either run fast across the street or wait for United Nations armored vehicles and walk behind them, using them as protective shields. The road connects the industrial part of the city to the Old Towns cultural and historic sites, where many citizens lived. The boulevard itself has many high-rise buildings giving sniper shooters extensive fields of fire. It is estimated that about 225 people were killed by snipers, and more than 1,000 others were wounded by sniper bullets. According to data gathered in 1995, the snipers wounded 1,030 people and killed 225 - 60 of whom were children.

The name "Sniper Alley" was primarily for streets such as Ulica Zmaja od Bosne (Dragon of Bosnia Street) and Meša Selimović Boulevard. People needed to travel these streets despite the danger posed by the numerous snipers, and the area had a large number of hand-painted signs warning of the presence of snipers to encourage citizens to find new walking routes.

In popular culture, Sniper Alley was fictionally depicted in the film The Peacemaker and was also featured in Joe Kuberts book Fax from Sarajevo. In the 2014 video game This War of Mine, Sniper Junction is a location based on Sniper Alley where players have to run across open ground to avoid sniper fire from a hotel.

Today, Sniper Alley is a tourist attraction, and visitors can walk along the street and see the bullet holes in the buildings.

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