Djamila
Bosnjakinja
Officially, the first victim of the war against Bosnia and Herzegovina was a 24-year-old Muslim student named Suada Dilberovic. She was shot and killed by a Serbian sniper while crossing the Vrbanja bridge with protestors demanding an end to the war between Serbia and Croatia. Suada, though Muslim, was a Croatian - having moved to Sarajevo from the Croatian coast to attend medical university.
Her last words, immortalized by a television news crew, were a tearful, blood-choked, "Oh dear God, please don't let them do this to Bosnia...". There is a memorial to her and another woman, an Orthodox Christian, who was also shot by Serbian snipers that day but largely forgotten (Olga Sucic).
All of this, though, is a lie. In a sense, that is. It's all true, but Suada Dilberovic was not the first victim of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The first victims were Bosnian Croats, Roman Catholics - slaughtered in their hundreds in several Bosnian towns during the war between Serbia and Croatia. These massacres took place almost a full year before Suada Dilberovic lay dying on the Vrbanja bridge.
They caught Bosnian politicians completely off-guard. Video still exists of Bosnia's President at the time, Alija Izetbegovic, receiving word of the news. Wide-eyed and visibly shaken, he stammered, "This is not our war!". No one believed the Serbs would try to do in Bosnia what they were doing in Croatia - carve out a "Greater Serbia".
Unlike in Croatia, Serbs in Bosnia generally did not live in homogenous enclaves and to carve out land for a new "Greater Serbia" would require nothing short of a genocide committed against Bosnia's majority Muslims and Roman Catholics. We now know that's exactly what happened.
But this thread is a glimpse back, in honor of the Roman Catholics of one village slaughtered in 1991 - Ravno. Their tragedy was and still is largely forgotten by most Bosnians.
Her last words, immortalized by a television news crew, were a tearful, blood-choked, "Oh dear God, please don't let them do this to Bosnia...". There is a memorial to her and another woman, an Orthodox Christian, who was also shot by Serbian snipers that day but largely forgotten (Olga Sucic).
All of this, though, is a lie. In a sense, that is. It's all true, but Suada Dilberovic was not the first victim of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The first victims were Bosnian Croats, Roman Catholics - slaughtered in their hundreds in several Bosnian towns during the war between Serbia and Croatia. These massacres took place almost a full year before Suada Dilberovic lay dying on the Vrbanja bridge.
They caught Bosnian politicians completely off-guard. Video still exists of Bosnia's President at the time, Alija Izetbegovic, receiving word of the news. Wide-eyed and visibly shaken, he stammered, "This is not our war!". No one believed the Serbs would try to do in Bosnia what they were doing in Croatia - carve out a "Greater Serbia".
Unlike in Croatia, Serbs in Bosnia generally did not live in homogenous enclaves and to carve out land for a new "Greater Serbia" would require nothing short of a genocide committed against Bosnia's majority Muslims and Roman Catholics. We now know that's exactly what happened.
But this thread is a glimpse back, in honor of the Roman Catholics of one village slaughtered in 1991 - Ravno. Their tragedy was and still is largely forgotten by most Bosnians.
