Although the location of the play is not specifically named, playwright Nick Wood has the following comment:

“the play did come partly from the Balkan conflicts, but more from the anger I felt at the way the media were whipping up public opinion against the tide of refugees that were supposed to be about to engulf us.  This was furthered by watching the way refugees were treated in Warrior Square where my stepson lived at the time – an area that has since been gentrified.  I wrote the first draft in Dover about the time the sub editor of the Mail was exposed as having invented stories about how asylum seekers were fighting with knives, attacking passers by etc.

 I didn't want to place the play too firmly in one area of conflict, but of course the comparisons with the Balkans are there. Certainly they identify with the characters and the situation, it's playing in Croatia, Sarajevo and Montenegro, but again they don't make the locale specific. It is all over though, isn't it, this kind of mindless hatred? “

It is not necessary for children to have a thorough understanding of this particular conflict – the issues the play deals with are all too familiar in too many situations, both on a wider political scale and on smaller scales too. Some students or teachers may wish to know more, however, so this section will offer some understanding of the situation.

The lead up to the Balkan conflict of 1991 onwards is longstanding and complex and has its roots in various political, economic and cultural issues as well as longstanding ethnic and religious tensions existing between Serb, Croat and Muslim communities for many centuries which has been interspersed with long periods of harmony. For simplicity this section offers only a very brief look at some of the issues.

The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was created in the aftermath of World War One and the name Yugoslavia was adopted in 1929. During the Second World War, Yugoslavia was occupied by Germany who established a Nazi puppet state in Croatia and Bosnia.
After the war the new Yugoslavia became a socialist republic (comprising the constituent republics of Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovenia and Serbia) under General Tito, who had been supported by the Allies during the war. Tito’s new communist state stressed the importance of “brotherhood and unity”.

Tito died in 1980 and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, four of the six republics elected non-communist governments. The Federation began to crumble and ethnic and religious divisions became increasingly apparent again as nationalist feelings were stirred up. The resulting conflict was the bloodiest on European soils since World War Two with over 200,000 lives lost and more than two million people displaced and homeless.
In 1991, Croatia and Slovenia declared independence and Serbia, under the leader of the Serbian Communist Party, Slobodan Milosevic, attacked. This resulted in Croatia losing about a third of its land, although most of this was regained in 1995. In 1992, Bosnia declared independence and war broke out between Bosnian Serbs, wishing to preserve Yugoslavia and Muslims who were in alliance with Croats. 
The term “ethnic cleansing” became widely used, as people who had formerly lived side by side now turned their backs on each other to become bitter enemies. Huge numbers were forced to flee and relocate themselves. They were also formally judged genocidal in character and many key individual participants were subsequently charged with war crimes.

In 1995, NATO became involved and the Dayton Accord was eventually signed although the nature of the war made it difficult or impossible for former neighbours to live happily side-by-side.

Although a fragile peace may have been established in Bosnia, problems in Kosovo still remained. The majority of people in the region were Albanian but a small Serb population considered Kosovo to be historically sacred land. Milosevic had removed Kosovo’s autonomous status in 1989 and in 1996 the Kosovo Liberation Army formed. Conflict erupted and again US and NATO forces became involved.

When the civil wars ended, much of the former Yugoslavia was reduced to poverty, and instability continued in the areas most affected by the fighting.

In Warrior Square we see the affect of the conflict on a personal level. Andrea and Riva are in school and playing with their friends one day and forced into hiding the next, isolated from their community and their former friends before witnessing the murder of their father and being forced to flee.