Grade school students and teachers gathered in Sarajevo’s Alipasino Polje neighbourhood on Saturday to mark World Teacher’s Day by laying flowers at a monument to school teacher Fatima Gunic and three of her students, Adis Mujal, Vedad Mujkanovic and Fedja Salkic, who were killed by a shell in the besieged city in 1993.
The students and teachers who gathered to pay their respects to Gunic came from a school which was named after her.
Sarajevo Canton Education Minister Zineta Bogunic and employees at her ministry joined the gathering as well. Bogunic reminded that the tragedy happened when a shell was fired from the area of Nedzarici on the improvised classroom where Gunic was teaching at that moment.
Apart from killing her and three students, it injured 23 others.
Bogunic said that Gunic represents “something special” and “a symbol of ethics” among teachers in Sarajevo Canton.
One of Gunic’s students, Enes Srna, remembers the tragedy well.
“Fatima Gunic was my neighbour and my teacher. I was in the classroom that day, but I left five minutes before the shell hit,” he said.
According to Hajrudin Cuprija, the principal of the ‘Fatima Gunic’ school, the teacher was killed “at the moment when she held a piece of chalk in her hand.”
“That is a strong message – that education workers were heroes during the war, and they are certainly still heroes today during peace,” he said.
“It is good that we are aware that education is an important part of our society. We, education workers, want to arm the coming generations with knowledge, so they become better than us, erase the obstacles and divisions between us,” he added.
However, Cuprija also added that the education sector today is not doing great, adding that he hopes for reforms.
