Flex Mentallo

Now they had burned all their books in a makeshift stove; the walls were blackened with soot, and covered in graffiti, created by Misha's daughter, who had recently managed to escape to the West.

Although we had had no means to get word to them, the sisters welcomed us with a good deal of warmth. Though their abode now resembled something out of Charles Dickens, it was possible to see that they had evidently been quite affluent before the war.

We managed to find our way to the proper address. Misha and Yasna lived in a flat by the corner of the old marketplace, which had been subject to an infamous mortar attack that had killed over 30 people. Flowers mark the spot where the shell exploded in this photo.

In different ways and at different times, Bobby and I had had to rely on each other's resourcefulness to get us though. On this occasion, I blustered my way into the UN office at the airport and – not without difficulty - managed to persuade a rather harassed official to arrange a lift for us in an APC. Bobby then charmed the troops who I think were Jordanian.

Her crew's aim was to interview pilots of relief flights at the otherwise closed-down and besieged airport. Despite their van's speed, Moth was hit in the face by a perfectly-aimed bullet from a sniper many hundreds of yards away, shattering her jaw and destroying her teeth and much of her tongue. After local emergency treatment, CNN had her flown to the Mayo Clinic in the US. "My face, it felt like my face was falling off," she said later of the moments after she was shot. "I remember I was trying to hold my face back on. I knew I had to stay conscious. If I go unconscious, I will stop breathing." She also joked later – but it was true – that her injury left her forever sounding to strangers like she was drunk. For many months, she couldn't speak. Fellow CNN cameraman Joe Duran recalled visiting her in hospital after initial surgery, before she had been allowed a mirror. She scribbled two notes to him: "Mark is OK?" referring to one of her colleagues who had been with her, and less seriously wounded, at the time. The other note read: "Do I look like a monster?" In 1992 Moth won a Courage in Journalism Award from the International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF). She was the subject of the CNN documentary Fearless: the Margaret Moth Story, which aired in October 2009. It was the story of her reporting the news in dangerous war zones, without fear.

It was in the Bosnian capital, on 23 July 1992, that Moth and two CNN colleagues set out on what correspondents used to call "one of the best laxatives known to mankind" – the pedal-to-metal dash from the centre of Sarajevo to the airport along "Sniper Alley", at the time a deserted boulevard in full view of Serbian snipers.

During the Serbian siege of Sarajevo, Moth would crawl into the rubble of a hotel room on what we called the "Emmental cheese" side of the shell-battered Holiday Inn – in direct line of sight of the Serbs' artillery. Using a night vision lens, and covering her camera's red "on" light with masking tape, she regularly filmed the overnight bombardment of the city by Serbian forces.

The CNN camerawoman Margaret Moth was shot and severely wounded while filming in Sniper Alley in July 1992. Because of this injury, considerable damage was done to her body, and her speech became slurred. Despite her injuries, she returned to work in Sarajevo six months later, joking that she was going back to look for her missing teeth.

People would either run fast across the street or would wait for United Nations armored vehicles and walk behind them, using them as shields. According to data gathered in 1995, in Sarajevo alone the snipers wounded 1,030 people and killed 225, 60 of whom were children.

Signs reading "Pazi – Snajper!" ("Watch out – Sniper!") became common.

Although the city was under constant Serbian siege, its people still had to move about the city in order to survive, thus routinely risking their lives.

Mountains surrounding the city were also used for sniper positions, providing a safe distance and giving an excellent view on the city and its traffic.

The road connects the industrial part of the city (and further on, Sarajevo Airport) to the Old Town's cultural and historic sites. The boulevard itself has many high-rise buildings giving sniper shooters extensive fields of fire

But there was no public transport - the buses and trams had been burnt out long before. "Sniper Alley" (Bosnian: Snajperska aleja) was the informal name primarily for Ulica Zmaja od Bosne (Dragon of Bosnia Street), the main boulevard in Sarajevo which during the Bosnian War was lined with snipers' posts, and became infamous as a dangerous place for civilians to traverse.

We then had to get into the city proper, a good 5 miles away, down what was known as "Sniper Alley"

This was probably the most terrifying experience of my life. We were aware that the surrounding hills were full of Serb troops who regularly took pot shots, and here we were in the middle of an open runway with no cover in sight. It as at this moment that I realised that Bobby was between the hills and myself. I am 6 foot, she about 5 foot nothing. So I rather self consciously switched our positions and I don’t think she even noticed. "Gosh, those hills seem very close" she said, with a nervous laugh. Meanwhile I tried my best to suppress the urge to sprint for the barricade of sandbags surrounding the airport building.

So after surmounting many obstacles we finally found ourselves disembarking at Sarajevo Airport.

We felt like refugees in truth when we turned up there. At the reception desk, we explained our plight, and we were told that it was actually illegal to exchange currencies at that time. Anyone doing so was liable to arrest. But when we explained that we were booked on the morning flight to Sarajevo they took pity on us. "Come back later" they said. And we did so, to find that they had had a whip round among the staff so that we could exchange our useless cheques. "Good luck" they said.

This may account for the warm greeting we got from Misha and Yasna when we turned up unannounced on their doorstep. The previous night we had been in Zagreb, trying to change our UK traveller’s cheques into dollars or deutsche marks. We had learned too late that these were the only two currencies accepted in Sarajevo. We assumed that we would have no trouble exchanging currencies in such a cosmopolitan city. But every hotel and travel agent refused us. Finally, exhausted, we came to the venerable old Palace Hotel, perhaps the most expensive hotel in the city at that time, and by far the oldest.

The reason for this negative perception was simple: while the local citizenry braved the snipers, UNHCR staff moved safely around in APC'S wearing flak jackets and helmets. But most importantly they had standing orders never to put their own lives at risk. Consequently they had strict instructions to ignore children dying of sniper bullets lying in the road.

To my surprise I found that the UNHCR were largely despised by the Sarajlije, which is the name the people of Sarajevo give themselves, and which transcends ethnic boundaries. (Misha and Yasna were Bosnian Serbs for instance, but Sarajelije first and foremost)

At the same time, on average a new NGO (Non-Government Organisation) was being set up in Sarajevo every single day. The UNHCR did not approve of these, and were rather begrudging in their support. Perhaps this explains why their representative did not point out that it is mandatory to wear a flak jacket when flying in and out of Sarajevo - a fact we did not discover until after we were in the air. Fortunately, no one had bothered to notice.