(ANSA) - STRASBOURG - The 2018 Council of Europe Museum Prize has been awarded to the War Childhood Museum in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina). The museum was selected by the Culture Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly. The museum, which is deliberately apolitical, aims to fill in an existing gap in documenting war experiences from the child's perspective and therefore expands its research and collection across Bosnia and Herzegovina, among diaspora living abroad and also globally, in co-operation with associations in Lebanon, Syria and Turkey. The judging panel praised the museum's "real potential to serve as a powerful self-sustained model of civic initiative" and said it offered an example that could be replicated in other major conflict and post-conflict zones in the world. "The museum is a truly inspiring example of a grassroots initiative led by a charismatic young person, Jasminko Halilovic, who was himself a child during the four-year war siege of Sarajevo" says the rapporteur on the Museum Prize, the Italian parliamentarian Adele Gambaro. The prize has been awarded annually since 1977 to a museum judged to have made a significant contribution to the understanding of European cultural heritage. (ANSA)(ANSA).