April 11, 1996
Caption: Nermina Ismic mourns at the burial of her daughter, Admira, and her boyfriend Bosko Brkic on Wednesday in Sarajevo. The bodies were exhumed from a Serb military cemetery and taken to the city.
Associated Press
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herceovina -- The couple whose love and death came to symbolize Sarajevo's tragedy came home in coffins and were buried together Wednesday, ending the odyssey of a Serb man and Muslim woman the world knew as Romeo and Juliet.
Bosko Brkic and Admira Ismic died in sniper fire on Sarajevo's most dangerous bridge in May 1993. Their bodies lay in a last embrace for a week before being buried in a Serb-held suburb.
With the war over, Admira's father wanted his daughter and her beloved to rest in the city where they met. On Wednesday, the two were lowered into a joint grave in Lion Cemetery. Side-by-side wooden markers engraved with their names mark the spot.
"This is where they were killed and this is where they should have been buried," said Zijad Ismic, as his wife, Nermina, sobbed.
Ismic said he tried in vain to find Bosko's family to get permission for the reburial.
The story of the couple's love and death outgrew their personal tragedy to become a symbol of Sarajevo's plight.
Both were 25, and they had been together for nine years when they died. Asked by Bosko's mother at the start of the Bosnian war whether politics could ever separate them, Admira replied that only a bullet could do that.
The bullet came in 1993, remembered by many as the worst year of Sarajevo's siege, with hunger, cold and shelling daily occurrences.
The two had decided to seek a better life somewhere else.
They made a deal with friends in the Muslim-led government army to escape over the Vrbanja bridge across the Miljacka River. Government troops on the north bank and Serbs on the south kept the bridge under fierce sniper fire, making it a deadly no-man's land.
They went in daylight and were almost across when a sniper's bullet -- nobody knows from where -- killed Bosko. Another wounded Admira. She crawled to Bosko's body, put her arm around him and died without trying to go on alone.
As both sides traded blame for the killings, no one dared retrieve the bodies. Pictures of the dead couple filled newspapers and touched hearts worldwide.
Finally, the Serbs retrieved the bodies and buried them. Copyright 1996, The Detroit News
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Let us see the events:
They made a deal with friends in the Muslim-led government army to escape over the Vrbanja bridge across the Miljacka River. Government troops on the north bank and Serbs on the south kept the bridge under fierce sniper fire, making it a deadly no-man's land.
Oh so nice of the Muslims to get them help across. But why pick such a dangerous spot? The Muslims had safe outs from Sarajevo.
They went in daylight and were almost across when a sniper's bullet -- nobody knows from where -- killed Bosko. Another wounded Admira. She crawled to Bosko's body, put her arm around him and died without trying to go on alone.
Daylight?? They crossed a sniped bridge at daylight?? when a sniper's bullet -- nobody knows from where - I am guessing the same side that told them the bridge was safe.
Finally, the Serbs retrieved the bodies and buried them. Those Serbs! So evil!
The bodies were exhumed from a Serb military cemetery and taken to the city. Muslim propoganda props to the end. The Muslims did not even put a cross to mark the Christian Serb's grave.