Survivors mark Markale Remembrance Day: Girl who said "sorry" to a dying stranger

Then just 16 years old, Omanovic was among the crowd at the central market when a mortar shell struck the area. She lost her leg in the blast and faced unimaginable horrors as a teenager in the besieged capital.

Recalling the morning of the attack, Omanovic described a momentary sense of peace in the city. "It was a beautiful, sunny day. People had 'crawled' outside because there had been no shelling that day," she remembered. "In a second, everything stopped. One life ended, and the struggle for another began."

The force of the detonation pinned her against the market wall. Despite being in a state of profound shock, her subconscious flickered back to images she had seen on television of the first Markale massacre in February 1994.

"Instinctively, I raised my hand and called for help, just as I had seen people do a year earlier," she said. "I fell onto the torso of a man who was completely dismembered, without a head or legs. His heart was still beating. I remember saying to him in that darkness and dust: 'I'm sorry.'"

The shrapnel severed her leg instantly and caused severe injuries to her back, head, and spine.

"Two kilograms of shrapnel"

In the chaotic aftermath, citizens rushed to her aid despite the risk of follow-up strikes. She remained conscious, remarkably asking for a bandage to tie off her legs and stem the bleeding herself.

"Later, they told me I had two kilograms of shrapnel in my body," she said. "I lay in the corridor of the old surgery ward in silence. I always say, those who suffer the most are often the quietest. I just prayed to be moved to orthopedics, believing I would survive there."

A warning on lost empathy

Reflecting on the present day, Omanovic expressed sadness over what she perceives as a decline in the solidarity that once defined Sarajevo’s citizens during the siege.

"It is fascinating how humane people were back then. Today, that empathy is below any limit," she observed. "People have retreated into themselves, looking only at their own interests and material things, as if they do not expect that evil could ever happen again."

Her story remains a poignant reminder of the cost of the conflict and the resilience of the human spirit, as Sarajevo pauses to honor thousands of victims like her.