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BY CHRIS LESLIE THE children confined to Bjelave orphanage had suffered terribly – because of the war and from neglect and abuse.
One journalist described the institution as “the worst place in Sarajevo apart from the morgue”.
I first arrived in Sarajevo in late In 1997, photographer Chris Leslie helped kids at Sarajevo’s Bjelave orphanage take images of their city. He returned this summer to see how their lives have changed summer 1996 and the destruction in the city was jaw-dropping. There were rows and rows of broken, bombed-out high-rise flats. Shell craters and explosion indents everywhere. Libraries, offices, factories all in ruins.
The Bosnian war had ended in 1995 and Sarajevo was enjoying its long-awaited peace. In 1997, I started a photography class set using equipment bought with help from the Daily Record.
I taught the children, aged six to 16, basic photography techniques – shooting with 35mm SLR film cameras, developing their films and printing. It was intended to be a creative outlet for children who had experienced an intense period of trauma during the war.
The children from the orphanage and the surrounding neighbourhood ran around playgrounds and streets documenting anything that came into their viewpoint.
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