Memories of bloody snow in Alipasino polje

Muhamed Kapetanovic’s memories are also stirred up by the events of that day. He was sledding with a friend named Daniel near his apartment building when the attack happened. He was nine years old.

“I remember when I turned around I saw that his head [Daniel’s] was decapitated and the blood was on the snow. It was horrible. And now when I remember it, it was like something out of a horror movie, except this was real,” says Kapetanovic.

On the same day, five other children between the ages of four and thirteen were also killed. Six other children were seriously wounded.

According to a victims group called the Association of Parents, 1,600 children were killed during the siege of Sarajevo. Most of them were killed by shells and snipers while playing. The perpetrators of this attack have not been brought to justice.

A broken yellow boot

January 22, 1994 was a sunny and seemingly calm day. The good weather tempted the children of Alipasino Polje to go sledding. Six children ultimately lost their lives that day, as a result of several shells fired from the Army of Republika Srpska.

The youngest victim was Jasmina Brkovic. She was four years old. Her eleven year old sister Indira was also killed. Four boys were also killed: eight year old Mirza Dedovic, nine year old Admir Subasic, ten year old Daniel Jurenic, and the oldest among them, thirteen year old Nermin Rizvanbegovic.

Muhamed Kapetanovic said that lots of children were sledding near his apartment building that afternoon. As Kapetanovic recalled, when the first shell fell, the children tried to escape into the building but they were stopped by another shell.

“I did not hear any sound whatsoever, I just felt a huge amount of heat and was thrown into the air. I fell to the ground. I felt a strong buzzing in my ears. I tried to get up again but I fell. I had yellow boots on and when I looked at my feet I saw that my boot’s heel was completely broken,” says Muhamed, who ended up losing part of his leg as a result of his injuries.

Muhamed’s father, Hamed Kapetanovic, says that he saw the attack on his son and the other children from their apartment window. His wife, in a state of shock, tried to throw herself off the eleventh floor, convinced that Muhamed had died.

“I saw how the shell threw them. In fact, there was a lot of smoke and fire from the big shell. We heard loud screaming from the children…When I came down, I saw a neighbor holding him [Muhamed] up by his arms, his legs were hanging, and he was very injured. And I also saw many of the others – their bodies were cut into pieces,” said Hamed Kapetanovic.

Several neighbors drove the wounded children to the hospital in Dobrinja, where they were given first aid treatment.

Not soldiers or fighters, just boys and girls

Barbara Jurenic, Daniel’s mother, recalled that her son went sledding with his sister Ivana that day. Ivana returned home earlier because her ski suit was wet, and her parents forbid her from going out again. Then they heard the attack.

“I heard the screams of children, I heard all of that. In the time that it took for all the shrapnel to fall, I went down to the pavement. I look at the lined up children and little Muhamed [Kapetanovic], who was injured in a corner, where the detonation had thrown him. I approached two brothers, Admir and Elvir, and I asked them where my son Daniel was. One of them said, ‘He’s down there.’ I looked and saw him lying face down, without his head,” said Jurenic.

She said that brothers Admir and Elvir were wounded and taken to Italy for treatment. Muhamed stayed in Sarajevo’s Kosevo hospital a month and a half and underwent operations in Italy several times.

Jurenic’s fate is shared by couple Esad and Zehra Subasic. Their son, also named Admir, failed to escape to a nearby staircase when the first shell fell. He was killed along with the other children.

Zehra Subasic says that her only desire is to meet the person who fired the shells and shrapnel that day in Alipasino Polje.

“I’d love to see this man, to meet him and ask him whether he has his children and family. They were not soldiers or fighters, just boys and girls,” said Subasic.

The persons responsible for firing missiles on civilians during the siege of Sarajevo in this and other cases have not been prosecuted.

The Hague Tribunal sentenced Stanislav Galic to life imprisonment and Dragomir Milosevic to 29 years in prison for crimes committed in Sarajevo. The verdicts confirmed that Galic and Milosevic, both former commanders of the Army of Republika Srpska, waged a campaign of shelling and sniping with the aim of spreading terror among the citizens of Sarajevo.

Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, former high ranking senior officials of the Army of Republika Srpska, are currently on trial at the Hague for the shelling and terror inflicted upon the citizens of Sarajevo. The first instance verdict for Karadzic is expected to be handed down in October 2015, whereas Mladic’s verdict is expected in March 2017.

The biggest trauma a parent can experience

Zehra Subasic, like most of the other parents who lost children that day, is having a difficult time coping with her loss. She is in poor health, uses sedatives to control her blood pressure, and every anniversary of Admir’s death causes her pain.

Neuropsychiatrist Alma Bravo Mehmedbasic says that the loss of a child is the biggest trauma that a parent can experience.

“The loss of a child during war, where a child is killed by firearms or any other way, is not a natural death. That can cause different feelings of guilt in parents, like why did they let their child go, why weren’t they with their child, why did they survive – it’s kind of like a feeling of guilt on the part of the survivor,” explains Bravo Mehmedbasic.

She advises that every parent suffering this kind of loss seek the help of mental health professionals.
Barbara Jurenic, Daniel’s mother, began to see a neighbour who happens to be a psychologist shortly after the death of her son. According to Jurenic, her daughter Ivana gave her the strength to live, and she began to laugh again after the birth of her grandchildren, Mia and Doris.

“Whenever I hear the boys playing football under the window, or when it’s snowing, I think about how big he [Daniel] would be today. I compare him to these young men. He would certainly have had his own family,” says Jurenic.

Very close to the Sarajevo cemetery where Daniel and Admir are buried, Muhamed has begun his new life. Today, he is a member of the national Bosnian team of sitting volleyball for the disabled. He says that nothing brings him greater joy than when he is standing on stage, watching the flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina being raised. However, every snowfall and sight of children sledding bring him back to those painful memories of January 22, 1994.