Government and Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina had a majority of Muslims as did the army it set up. Hostilities between the ethnic groups intensified in September 1993, when the Bosnian army killed dozens of Croat civilians at Uzdol. This action brought accusations by the HVO that the Bosnian army had carried out many more atrocities than what had been reported and moved armed troops into the Uzdol area to protect the Croats there. The fighting caused thousands of Croats to leave their homes and flee to Croatia or parts of Bosnia protected by the HVO. In Fonjnica the Bosnian army killed two Franciscan friars. The army also was seen openly looting Croat shops in Vares.
As the war continued to degenerate into local conflicts there were many complexities that included an alliance between the Muslims and the Serbs to fight against the Croats in Herzegovina. In north western Bosnia, rival Muslim groups fought each other. In another case in central Bosnia the Croats and Serbs united to fight the Muslims.
Surveys after the war showed that 60 percent of the houses that once stood in Bosnia and Herzegovina were destroyed with half the schools and about a third of the hospitals being burned to the ground. A waste land of destroyed roads, power plants, water systems, crops, vineyards, and industrial plants was all that was left. Toxic pollutants were dumped in rivers, and the fields had been seeded with land mines.
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