Zlata Filipovic's 1993 diary of life during the Bosnian war has been compared to Anne Frank's. Now 23, she is still fascinated by young people's war writings, as Children's Express found out.
Can you imagine being forced to leave your own country at 13? Every year thousands of people are uprooted by war. Zlata Filipovic was one of them.
Zlata was only a teenager when she left Bosnia in 1993 during a bitter civil war. She was living in Sarajevo when the war reached the city in 1992. The gas and electricity were cut off and gunmen started shooting people at random. Zlata couldn't go out.
"It was horrible. I was constantly afraid," she says. "Every time my parents would leave the house, I didn't know if I'd ever see them again because shells were constantly falling on our city and vicious snipers were everywhere."
Some people chose to stay, but Zlata and her family managed to escape with the help of friends in Western Europe. They eventually arrived in Dublin, where Zlata was safe and free to go to school. But it wasn't easy:
"Suddenly having a life that is often more difficult than the one you grew up with is really hard. Becoming a refugee or simply running away from war is a little war of its own."
Not only did she have to deal with learning new things in a new country, she also had to deal with what she'd experienced.
"Having to face that scale of death at an early age is a huge trauma for young people. I will always remember so many things because it has totally defined my life."
It's impossible to really know what it's like to live in war unless you've been through it. It's equally difficult for those who have to describe what it was really like. But this is something Zlata has tried to do.
She kept a diary, which was later published as Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo, and she's now working on another book: a collection of stories from young people who have also lived through conflicts. The Children in Conflict diary project will show how war can affect children everywhere in the same ways. Whether they are growing up in the American Civil War, or surviving the conflict in Iraq, their thoughts and experiences are echoed in the diaries of other young people.
Their words are important because their experiences of war of war can help us think more about the world and the consequences of conflict.
As Zlata so perfectly sums up: "It is hugely important to learn about other things, other religions, other countries, other people, other experiences. Learning is one of the best ways we can hope for a better and a more peaceful world."
About the teamThis story was produced by Charlotte Lytton, 13. It was published by Revolution Magazine.
