The delicate balance between the different ethnic groups in Yugoslavia was disrupted during the 1990s. During these years, a series of conflicts and political upheavals resulted in the dissolution of Yugoslavia. The country was plagued with many problems: foreign debt, inflation, unemployment, strong nationalist feelings and political problems that created a troublesome atmosphere. This eventually led to a crisis and the country fell apart into several independent countries. Slovenia and then Croatia were the first to break away, but could only do so at the cost of sparking conflict with Serbia. By 1992 further conflict had broken out in Bosnia, which had also declared independence. Because Bosnia's demographic structure was composed of Serbs and Croats that made up close to 50% of the total population (see the map below), and because ideas of independence rested with the ethnicities rather than the nation as the whole, large sections of Bosnia came under dispute, causing the Yugoslav wars.

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The Serbs who lived in Bosnia were determined to remain within Yugoslavia and to help build a greater Serbia. There was fierce fighting between Bosnian-Muslims, Serbs, and Croats. The Serbs massacred thousands of Bosnian-Muslims and engaged in ethnic cleansing. The capital, Sarajevo, was surrounded and besieged by Bosnian-Serb forces, who controlled around 70% of Bosnia. The presence of UN peacekeepers to contain the situation proved ineffective and it lasted until 1995 before a peace agreement was signed. In December 1995, the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina – also referred to as the Dayton Agreement – was signed in Paris. This agreement ended the war in Bosnia, which had lasted for three and a half years. The Bosnian War left the newly independent country, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and its multi-ethnic capital, Sarajevo, all but devastated.