TWO thousand books are heading to Bosnia to restock university libraries devastated by shelling during the war.

An appeal by Blackwell's Online Bookshop has raised more than £12,000 to send much-needed books to universities in Sarajevo, Mostar and Banja Luka. The appeal was launched after a visit to the universities in November 1997 by a delegation from Blackwell's.

The books will be shipped to Bosnia by the UK-based charity SOS Bosnia and will leave Oxford on April 11.

Liz Macfarlane, site editor of the Online Bookshop, was among the visitors to Bosnia.

She said: "It was pretty devastating. The libraries at Mostar and Sarajevo had been shelled. They were just hollow shells of burnt-out buildings.

"The National and University library at Sarajevo had lost over two million items. A lot of those were manuscripts that couldn't be replaced or books that were national treasures.

"Bosnia is a very depressed country, trying to get back on its feet. I came back feeling we could make a lot of difference to a generation of students whose youth had been eaten up by the war period.

"A lot of books that we'll be taking out will be about subjects such as engineering and medicine that are of particular relevance to students trying to rebuild a country."

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