Bosnia was a territory in Europe that at different times belonged to Austria and Yugoslavia or was an independent country.
History
At the beginning of the 20th century, Bosnia was under the Austrian control. The Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne, was assassinated in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo by a Serbian terrorist Gavrilo Princip because Serbia had a claim at Bosnia. This served as the casus belli for World War I. (PROSE: Human Nature) The Tenth Doctor claimed that, despite this territorial dispute between Austria and Serbia, most people had never heard of Bosnia before the assassination. (COMIC: The Weeping Angels of Mons)
At some point, it had been part of former Yugoslavia. By 1994, (PROSE: Invasion of the Cat-People) it became torn by internecine conflict. Eve Waugh believed that Great Britain was capable of becoming like this country even without an alien invasion. (PROSE: The Dying Days)
Sam Jones was reminded of news reports from Bosnia by the abandoned village of Lanzerath in December 1944. (PROSE: Autumn Mist)
In 1996, during Operation Endeavour, a Bosnian diplomat was assassinated by a man who attempted to use Josie Williams as a hostage to escape from Major Johnson and his men. However, Paul Reynish sneaked up on him and saved her. (HOMEVID: When to Die) Jacques Fournier went to Bosnia with a United Nations peacekeeping force and learnt fluent English. (AUDIO: Uncanny Valley)
At 8:40AM GMT on a Wednesday in September 2009, Bosnia was among the numerous places across Earth in which RTAs occurred as a result of the 456 compelling every human child to suddenly stop and proclaim their message: "we are coming." (TV: Children of Earth: Day One)
Behind the scenes
- Conversation in The Dying Days shifts from Yugoslavia to Bosnia without explicitly stating that the two are connected. References don't even make it clear that it is a country, not a city. Although later compared to Britain, Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart compares Bosnia to the city of Belfast and Ianto Jones' list of countries also includes the city of Tokyo.
- The Tenth Doctor refers to a man who assassinated an Austrian archduke, starting World War I, as a Serbian. (TV: The Family of Blood) It might be more accurate to say that Gavrilo Princip was a Bosnian Serb, Serbs being an ethnic group in Bosnia.