Violence Against Aid Workers in Yugoslavia

Writer Michael Ignatieff's article "Unarmed Warriors" appears in the March 24, 1997 issue of The New Yorker. He writes about the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the increased dangers that workers have been exposed to, although they are considered neutral and carry no weapons. In Rwanda in 1994, 36 workers were killed in the war, and in Chechnya last December, six staff members were murdered.

In the early 1990s, NPR journalist Scott Simon reported from war-torn Sarajevo. Those experiences formed the basis for his debut novel, Pretty Birds, the story of a 16-year-old girl who adapts to her violent times.

Dr. Sheri Fink's new book is War Hospital: A True Story of Surgery and Survival. It's about a group of doctors who treated patients in Srebrenica, Bosnia, under the most extreme conditions. They treated thousands of patients, often without electricity, water or proper medicine. Fink, a physician and writer based in New York, works with the humanitarian organization International Medical Corps. She just returned from Iraq and has also worked in the Balkans, southern Africa and Central Asia.