A man picks up his belongings as he prepares to leave Sarajevo. After the outbreak of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in April 1992, Bosnia and Herzegovina seceded from Yugoslavia. The Sarajevo Jewish community appealed to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) to organize an immediate evacuation. With the assistance of Bosnian and Herzegovinian Jewish leaders, JDC began a series of 11 convoys, evacuating over 2,100 Muslims, Christians, and Jews from Sarajevo to Belgrade, Serbia, Split, Croatia, as well as other locations. The departure point for JDC convoys out of besieged Sarajevo was a Jewish community building