| Suada Dilberović | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 24, 1968 Dubrovnik, Croatia |
| Died | April 5, 1992 (aged 23) Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina |
Suada Dilberović (24 May 1968[1] - 5 April 1992) was a Bosniak medical student at the University of Sarajevo who is considered along with Olga Sučić to be the first casualties of the Bosnian War.[2][3][4]
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Suada Dilberović was born in Dubrovnik, Croatia to a Bosniak family. She came to Sarajevo to study medicine and was in her 6th year of study when the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina started in the early days of April 1992.
On November 15, 2007 the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Sarajevo posthumously awarded Suada a medical degree.[5]
On April 5, 1992, in response to events all over Bosnia and Herzegovina 100,000 people of all nationalities turned out for a peace rally in Sarajevo. Serb snipers in a Holiday Inn hotel under the control of the Serbian Democratic Party in the heart of Sarajevo opened fire on the crowd killing 6 people and wounding several more. Suada Dilberović and an ethnic Croat woman Olga Sučić were in the first rows, protesting on the Vrbanja bridge at the time. The bridge on which Sučić and Dilberović were killed was renamed in their honor. Six Serb snipers were arrested, but were exchanged when the Serbs threatened to kill the commandant of the Bosnian police academy who was captured the previous day, after the Serbs took over the academy and arrested him.[3][6][7]
It is disputed between Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs who the first casualties of the Bosnian war are. Bosniaks and Croats consider the first casualties of the war to be Suada Dilberović and Olga Sučić.[2][3][4][8] Serbs consider Nikola Gardović, a groom's father who was killed at a Serb wedding procession on the second day of the referendum, on March 1, 1992 in Sarajevo's old town Baščaršija, to be the first victim of the war.[9]