Bosnian war economy – speculation of essential products

UNPROFOR Military Observers’ teams (like in most other UN missions) had to live among the population (mandatory). We could support our teams at the UNPROFOR military contingents, but we could not live inside those compounds. We were supposed to rent a team house and buy/prepare our own food. That particularity was due to the fact that the UNMO reports were not only on the combats’ development, we were also supposed to give a perspective of how hard was the living of the local population.  

During the war in Bosnia, the prices of the primary needed goods were exorbitant for the common citizen. In muslin cities where the Serbian forces had set a siege the situation was even more complicated. Sarajevo was one of such places, but the situation in Gorazde was particularly grave.

One day, we were tasked to go out in the field and make a comparison of the essential products between Sarajevo and Gorazde, in September 1995. At that time, the currency most people (in Bosnia) preferred to deal with was the German Mark – one German Mark was equivalent to one Euro/US Dollar. These were the prices we reported (prices in force in 1995):

1 Lt of cooking oil – 25€ in Gorazde and 4€ in Sarajevo; 1 kg of sugar – 30€ in Gorazde and 3€ in Sarajevo; 1 kg of potatoes – 2€ in Gorazde and the same price in Sarajevo; 1 kg of apples – 2€ in Gorazde and 1,5€ in Sarajevo; 1 egg (unit) – 2€ in Gorazde and 1,5€ in Sarajevo; 1 kg of onions – 7€ in Gorazde and 2,5€ in Sarajevo; 1 Kg of carrots – 7€ in Gorazde and 2€ in Sarajevo; 1 kg meat – 10€ in Gorazde and 17€ in Sarajevo; 1 Lt of diesel (fuel) – 15€ in Gorazde and 5€ in Sarajevo; 1 Lt of gasoline (fuel) – 35€ in Gorazde and 7€ in Sarajevo.

However, the most ridiculously expensive product of them all, in Gorazde, was the salt, which, on the 21st of September 1995, reach the price of 110€ per kilogram.

After the Dayton agreements, with the end of the combats and the opening of corridors, the humanitarian agencies started to move in and the quality of life increase exponentially in those places.