"Fortune's help have I in this, bullets for me always miss” (Ja sam vojnik sreće, mene metak neće) is a line from the song Vojnik sreće (Soldier of Good Fortune) by the Sarajevo-based musician Dino Merlin, whose songs were hummed by people hiding in cellars during the siege of Sarajevo, the capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with no electricity, water or food.

This song illustrates the typical Sarajevo humour and spirit which survived in the most difficult of conditions, and which will now be accessible to a wider audience through a new 3D museum of the siege of Sarajevo during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995.

The Siege of Sarajevo museum, which was launched by FAMA, MESS, Education Builds Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Youth Initiative for Human Rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina, has received an extraordinary amount of support from the general public, the media and politicians.

The museum will use 3D technology to enable visitors to experience a virtual siege of Sarajevo. Visitors will be able to learn about the everyday lives of people in Sarajevo during the war, and find out about the creative ways they found to move people about, celebrate cultural events and educate young people.

It is planned that the museum will be located in the central area of Marijin Dvor. Alma Mašić, head of the Youth Initiative for Human Rights, explains that "the building itself will be based on one of the large containers designed for carrying goods on board a ship. These containers will be designed by artists; they will be put in place and divided into 130 different sections. The latest 3D technology and holograms will help take the visitors on a kind of journey through the siege of Sarajevo."

Visitors will be able to see, hear and read testimonies given by the residents of Sarajevo, including its intellectuals and artists. There will be an encyclopedia and a chronological map of the siege of Sarajevo, alongside digital film and video archives, photographs, drawings and themed exhibits.

According to the artist and museum director Dino Mustafić, "people who do not remember their past have no prospects for the future. We live in a time when history is being rewritten, which is why this project is so important - for future generations it will become an important testimony to the spirit of the city that underwent a difficult period and miraculously rose from its ashes."

Artist Suada Kapić explained that the museum will be both an educational model for a modern way of treating historical events, and a testament to humanity and the creativity that went into surviving the four-year siege. “By using the educational model for primary and secondary schools, as well as university students, this project could become an integral part of the truth and reconciliation process in the region,"

The goal is to establish the museum by the end of 2011 and have the permanent exhibition in place in March 2012, which marks the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the siege of Sarajevo.