Natasa Cengic-Zimonjic, mother of famous handball player Goran Cengic, who was killed in Grbavica settlement in Sarajevo for trying to defend his neighbor, has closed her eyes forever.
She never got over the death of her son Igor, and she treamed Goran dreamed every night, and until the end she was with her third son Rocko, and with his grandchildren, Srdjan and Vanja, Goran’s sons, who took care of her. The date of burial will be determined.
Goran Čengić was born in 1946 in Sarajevo. He was well known as a hand-ball player for the clubs: Bosna, Mlada Bosna, Crvena zvezda and the Yugoslav national team. In 1963, when he was 17, his team, Bosna, won the Yugoslav Cup.
Goran was raised in the spirit of the ideals of anti-fascism, particularly freedom and equality for all people. These were the principles his parents, Nataša Zimonjić-Čengić and Ferid Fićo Čengić, the first post-war mayor of Sarajevo, brought him up to believe in.
During the recent war he lived in an occupied part of Sarajevo, on Grbavica, and from there he was taken and killed on June 14, 1992 after he tried to protect his neighbor, Dr. Husnija Ćerimagić, when Veselin Vlahović Batko, otherwise known as the „Grbavica Monster“ came to take Dr. Ćerimagić to his death. Čengić’s attempt to save Dr. Ćerimagić was in vain. They took both men away. Goran’s remains were discovered nine years later and he was finally laid to rest.
The Duško Kondor Award for Civil Courage is being given to Goran Čengić of Sarajevo posthumously, because fully cognizant of the risk he was undertaking he sacrificed his life, thereby demonstrating civil courage by the following:
