American war reporter and photographer Kurt Schork lost his life on May 24th, 2000, on assignment in Sierra Leone. Although he reported from numerous battlefields, Sarajevo and Bosnia had a special place in his heart.
Schork’s journey as a war reporter begins in Asia, and Reuters notices his reports from the Gulf War. While others left the field, Schork stayed and recorded the fierce clashes between the Kurdish guerrillas and the Iraqi army. Thanks to these reports, he got a job in a prestigious global agency.
Just one year later, Schork comes to Sarajevo as the head of the Reuters office. He remained in the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) throughout the war, while many of his colleagues asked for a transfer from war zones after several “Sarajevo encounters with grenades”.
His reporting kept the world’s attention focused on the war in BiH. He was the first to bring the story of Admira Ismic and Bosko Brkic to the world.
“Sarajevo is a relatively small city. Maybe six miles from one end of the city to the other and it is surrounded by mountains, while the Miljacka river is the backbone of the city. The Serbs held positions around the city, so they could very easily aim at the targets with their rifles, anti-aircraft machine guns, grenades, tanks… If you go to these positions and look into the city, you will very easily spot people. You can see people without telescopic sights…”, Schork wrote about the war in Sarajevo.
He was respected by all. Christian Amanpour said that “No detail was too small for him not to investigate”, and Richard Holbrooke called him the bravest and best journalist he had ever met.
The former envoy of the United Nations (UN) Secretary General, Jacques Paul Klein, spoke the best about Schork.
“Schork became a typical Sarajevo citizen in wartime Sarajevo, even though he was an American citizen. He became the consciousness of the crumbling city and showed that the pen is mightier than the sword.”
Schork was posthumously awarded a BiH passport, and a street was also dedicated to him in Sarajevo. The fact that according to Schork’s last wishes, after the cremation, half of his ashes were buried next to his mother in Washington, while the other half was laid to rest at the Lav cemetery in Sarajevo, next to the graves of Bosko and Admira from his world-famous story, shows how personally connected he was to our country, Klix.ba reports.
E.Dz.
