Amel Emric / AP

Red chairs are displayed along a main street in Sarajevo as the city marks the 20th anniversary of the start of the Bosnian war on April 6, 2012.

Reuters reports from Sarajevo — With a line of 11,541 red chairs, one for each victim of the siege of Sarajevo, Bosnia on Friday remembered when war broke out 20 years ago and the West dithered in the face of the worst atrocities in Europe since World War Two.

The anniversary finds the Balkan country still deeply divided, power shared between Serbs, Croats and Muslims in a single state ruled by ethnic quotas and united by the weakest of central governments.

Amel Emric / AP

City officials have lined up 11,541 red chairs arranged in 825 rows along the main street that now looks like a red river representing the 11,541 Sarajevans who were killed during the siege.

"The Sarajevo Red Line is in fact the line of blood that ran down the streets of Sarajevo from April 6, 1992 until 1995," Sarajevo mayor Alija Behmen said of the long line of chairs through the center of the capital.

• Previously on PhotoBlog — Srebrenica: The story that will never end

On Thursday, cellist Vedran Smailovic, who became an icon of artistic defiance when he played on a central Sarajevo street as the city was shelled, played again for the first time in his hometown since he left in 1993. Read the full story.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Cellist Vedran Smajlovic addresses the auditorium before playing at one of the ceremonies being held to mark the 20th anniversary of the start of the siege of Sarajevo, on April 5, 2012.

Amel Emric / AP

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