Romeo and Juliet in Sarajevo

Hello dear friends and visitor. Last night I received an email from a friend of mine Ivana Taves (pls Visit her site, ok?) asking me about one of the my video music favorite title and who is the female singer who sang that song. So, I have explained all of the music video here to her, and I told her also that my most favorite video is video no 6 from you tube, sang by Sammi Cheng – the title is Sarajevo's Romeo and Juliet (translated).

Well, tell you the truth, that email really inspired me to make a post about that video music (thanks Ivana). This video music (you should like it) is based on the true love story of Romeo and Juliet of Balcan (Serbia and Bosnia) war victims in 1993 and was became an international issued. They became a symbol for the suffering of the people on all sides of the conflict. Photographs of their dead bodies were used by numerous media outlets.

According of the sources that I was read, Romeo and Juliet in Sarajevo was an international documentary about the deaths of Admira Ismić (born 1968) (Bosnian) and Boško Brkić (born 1968) (Serbian Orthodox). The couple were natives of the former Yugoslavia, living in the city of Sarajevo. Like many other couples and families in Bosnia, they were of different religious backgrounds; she was a Bosnian Muslim, and he was a Serbian.

The Siege of Sarajevo caused living conditions to deteriorate drastically for its inhabitants and, in 1993, the couple decided to flee the city. Having friends on all sides involved in the conflict there was a general thought that their passage through the city and its infamous Sniper Alley could be a safe one.

Confident that they had guarantees of safety, An arrangement was made for May 19, 1993 at 17:00 (GMT +01:00) that no one would fire as the couple approached. Admira and Bosko walked from Bosnian government frontlines in the heart of the city, between buldings bristling with guns, toward Serb-held Grbavica. They planned to go to Belgrade and end on to try a life abroad.

According to Dino Kapin, who was a Commander of Croatian Unit allied at the time with Bosnian Army forces, around 17:00, a man and a woman were seen approaching the Vrbana bridge.

As soon as they were at the foot of the bridge, a shot was heard, and according to all sides involved in their passage, the boy and girl were shot down. Bosnian Moslem Admira Ismic and Bosnian Serb Bosko Brckic, both 25, died trying to escape Sarajevo.

The bullet hit Boško Brkić first and killed him instantaneously. Another shot was heard and the woman screamed, fell down wounded, but was not killed yet. She crawled over to her boyfriend body, cuddled him, hugged him, (finally, they hugged tightly) and she died. A pair of lovers lying on the shore of Sarajevo Miljacka River on (Vrbana bridge), and then stopped breathing. They were killed on May 19, 1993, while fleeing the besieged city on Vrbanja bridge.

It was observed that she was still alive for at least 15 minutes after the shooting.. Their bodies remained in the no-man's land (over Vrbana bridge) for nearly four days before being recovered.

According to a report by Sean Maquire from Reuters three years after they died for love, the Muslim girl and Serb boy whose fate symbolized the madness of Sarajevo's ethnic division have been brought home. The bodies of Admira Ismic and Bosko Brkic were exhumed from an untended grave in a Serb military cemetary and sent back to the reunified city whose wartime horrors they tried to flee.

They will be buried side by side today in Sarjevo's Lion cemetery in graves within sight of the cafe where they courted. Lowering the coffins into their final resting place will mark the end of a journey that began in hope in May 1993.

"Some people don't realize the greatness of their death," said Admira's father, Zijah Ismic. "He stayed in Sarajevo because of her, and she wanted to reward him by leaving with him to the Serb side."

Zijah and his wife, Nera, found Serb friends to exhume their daughter and the boy they treasured as a son from territory that the war's end has net yet made safe to visit. "At first I didn't want to disturb them in their peace, but my wife and mother insisted we get them back so that people can come to their graves and visit them," Zijah said.

The couple were sweet-hearts for eight years before their deaths at age 25. They grew up in a city where inter-ethnic marriage was common until nationalist hatred blossomed. "If they'd had religion on their mind they wouldn't have been together," said Zijah of her Muslim daughter and her Orthodox Serb boyfriend. Today's funeral will be nonsectarian.

Source : CNN Mission Piece, S.F. Chronicle Wikipedia
 Original photograph by Mark Milstein