The war passed, but the scenes of the massacre remain in people’s minds forever. They are not only in the archives, but in the eyes of the people who survived them. In the corridors of the Sarajevo hospital, among the blood, moans and bodies of civilians blown up by shells, another line of defense of Sarajevo was being formed – the medical, human, almost superhuman line.
Prof. Dr. Ismet Gavrankapetanović, director of the General Hospital in Sarajevo, speaks calmly today, but behind every sentence there are painful scenes that never disappear. The first mass killing of Sarajevo citizens in the bread line in what was then Vasa Miskina Street, today’s Ferhadija, on May 27, 1992, is not just a historical fact for him. That’s the moment when he saw “the scene that left the whole world speechless”.
A shell fired from Serbian positions above Sarajevo killed 26 and wounded more than a hundred civilians who were waiting for a piece of bread. That morning, Sarajevo believed that maybe it would be quiet for at least a few hours, because a truce had been announced. Instead of peace, the city got carnage, Federalna writes.
“There was no more space in the hospital. The wounded lay in the corridors, on the floors, from the amphitheater to the elevators. Doctors improvised operating rooms wherever they could. There were not enough medicines, infusions, antibiotics, nor enough hands to help everyone. Nevertheless, 73 lives were saved in that disaster,” recalls Gavrankapetanović and continues:
“Such scenes, these images, are simply “etched” into your being. These are not just medical memories, but the scars worn by people who saw the dismembered bodies of their fellow citizens, children, mothers, and the elderly every day. Sarajevo was not only a city under siege. There was a city where terror was systematically carried out against civilians.
During the siege, Sarajevo was not only defended by soldiers on the lines. He was defended by doctors who operated under candles without electricity, nurses who sometimes did not go home for weeks staying with the wounded, citizens who carried the wounded in their arms, people who shared the last piece of bread during hunger,” he said.
“The siege of Sarajevo was not a “conflict of parties”, nor a tragedy without a name. There was an organized siege of a city and the systematic killing of its inhabitants. The massacre in Ferhadija, then the two massacres in Markale, remain bloody symbols of that policy,” says Gavrankapetanović.
The testimonies of people like Gavrankapetanović are important because they destroy any attempt to forget and relativize.
His words are not political speech. They come from the operating rooms, from the corridors full of wounded, from the nights in which the doctors tried to save what the shell left behind. That is why they have the weight of truth.
“I dedicate this painful memory of May 27th 34 years ago to all the defenders of Sarajevo, to all the doctors, nurses and technicians, to all the citizens of Sarajevo during the difficult period of its history from 1992 to 1996. To every mother, wife, daughter and sister… to every child of this great, beautiful and honorable city “ says, in conclusion, Prof. Dr. Ismet Gavrankapetanović.
