It has been 27 years since the death of Srdjan Aleksic, a young Bosnian Serb man who became a symbol of humanness when he chose to do the right thing in the darkest of times - he was killed while defending his friend, a Bosniak, from Bosnian Serb soldiers.

When the Bosnian war began, Aleksic, from the southern town of Trebinja, became a member of the Army of Republika Srpska. In January 1993, he came across a group of Bosnian Serb soldiers harassing Alen Glavovic and tried to stop it. This made the soldiers turn against one of their own. They beat him into a coma. Aleksic died in the local hospital six days later, on January 27, 1993. Aleksic was posthumously granted a Charter of Bosnia’s Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, a street in Sarajevo was named after him, as well as a passage in Novi Sad, Serbia, where there is also a plaque commemorating him. Another passage in the Serbian town of Pancevo is named after him, and in the Bosnian town of Tuzla, there is a sports tournament carrying his name. Serbia’s former President Boris Tadic awarded Aleksic with the ‘Milos Obilic’ medal for courage and heroism in 2012, while Milorad Dodik, the former President of Republika Srpska, Bosnia’s Serb-majority region, awarded him with the ‘Order of honour of Republika Srpska’ in 2013. A street in Montenegro’s Podgorica also carries his name, as well as one in New Belgrade. Aleksic’s story also inspired the film ‘Circles’, by Srdjan Golubovic. At a gathering commemorating the young man last year, Aleksic’s father, Rade, said that he is proud of the life his son lived and what he achieved and that the way he is remembered today proves that he did not die in vain. “Srdjan Aleksic lives within the people across Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and further,” Rade Aleksic said. “I feel this because when I walk the streets young people whom I don’t even know personally greet me, they know me because of Srdjan, and that is how he keeps on living in Trebinje,” he said. Alen Glavovic today lives in Sweden, is married and has two children. He comes to Trebinje every year to visit the grave of his friend, Srdjan.