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Our next story takes us to the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina – Sarajevo. During the Bosnian War; it was under a full on siege by Serbian forces and lasted from 1992 to 1996, making it the longest siege of a capital city in the complete history of modern warfare.
Even though many people had left the city when the war started – many people stayed put. Some didn’t have the money to leave – some stayed to defend their country, but most stayed for their families.
The Siege of Sarajevo is also known for being brutal – with the streets of the city being filled with death, agony and hopelessness.
Sarajevo, geographically, is a city surrounded by tall mountains from all sides. These mountains, which people in the city used to view as beautiful, became perfect sniping positions for the Serbian forces who gunned down people as they pleased.
Pregnant women, children, old people – no matter who you were, the snipers wouldn’t discriminate or hold back. Some of them did show mercy though – at the strangest of times. It could be that, after feeling such power over other people’s lives – some of the snipers would get a kick out of letting people go when they weren’t expecting it.
Or maybe they were just random acts of mercy, brought on by one simple human emotion – sympathy. Although the populous of the city was easy to harass from the many mountains that surrounded it, not all of them were taken over by Serbian forces, which meant that at least some streets of the city were safe for passage.
All sniper zones in the city were marked, usually with huge banners that said “CAREFUL! SNIPER!” on them. Does this sound insane to you? That humanity could be that cruel and twisted? If it does, you’re in for a few more surprises by the time this story ends – and so are the people in them.
If it wasn’t obvious to you already, those snipers play a huge part of this story – which starts with a young mother trying to take care of her children, while she hoped her husband would come back from the front lines safe and in one piece.
The woman’s name was Džana Aganovi – her children were Tarik, who was four years old at the time and Amina, who was five. It was 1994 when this woman and her two little children faced bone-chilling horrors none of them expected.
There were enough horrors to deal with already – none of them were looking for more, but their wishes didn’t matter. They would all experience a strange event in that autumn of 1994.
Džana lived with her kids right next to the Miljacka river – which ran through the whole city, cutting it in half. It wasn’t a particularly wide or deep river, with many bridges available for crossing, but this mattered little when the snipers had perfect vision over all of them.
Džana didn't dare set one foot close to any of the bridges, up until the day when not doing so would put one of her children in immense danger. On that day, which was a Sunday, she was in her apartment, looking for something that could feed her kids.
She was very low on supplies that could feed and nourish her children properly, and Sarajevo in 1994 was an expensive city. Food, alcohol, drugs – anything you could imagine could be yours, but only if you had a ton of money to buy it from the black market, which wasn’t the case with her.
This made her feel guilty and useless, her kids needed to eat, it was her motherly duty to make that happen. On that cold autumn day, she decided her only option was to take the family jewels her mother had given her and trade them for food.
Before leaving the apartment she noticed Tarik was acting strange, again. This wasn’t the first time he was looking outside the window – seemingly transfixed on watching Miljacka. Džana kissed him on the cheek and after doing the same with his sister, she was on her way to the market. She told the kids to stay put and not touch a thing before she got back, which she promised would be very soon.
By “very soon” she probably didn’t mean several hours – but that’s how long it took her to sell off the jewelry for a price that would feed Tarik and Amina’s mouths for at least a bit longer. On her way back, she stopped several times to buy groceries and then she was on her way home.
She didn’t feel worried until she saw Amina standing outside of her apartment and on the street – crying. Getting to her as fast as possible, she hugged her and asked what was wrong, but before Amina even answered her question, she already realised what happened...
Tarik was gone. She looked around the street, inside the apartment, asked the neighbours and, after exhausting every option she could think of, she screamed and broke down in tears, right there on the street.
Where was her son – her “baby boy”? Was he taken by someone? A kidnapping? But why would anyone do such a thing? Before her mind went further into madness – Amina wiped away her tears and said that Tarik climbed down their window himself and that she saw exactly where he went.
To Miljacka. Or, to be more precise, he went right under one of the bridges. Džana, growing more upset and unstable every second, grabbed her daughter and asked her which bridge. Amina, never seeing her mother act that way, pointed at the bridge with shaky hands.
Džana ran towards the bridge without even taking a moment to consider the danger she was running into. It was broad daylight, which gave the snipers a perfect view of the bridge. Yes, her action was rushed and risky, but what would you do if it was your child in that situation? What would any parent...
Amina screamed – she might have been young – but she wasn’t completely oblivious to what was about to happen.
Only a few meters away from entering the snipers line of sight – Džana got tackled by 'Focho', who knocked her down on the ground. The impact didn’t calm her down though – nor did it make her any less willing to die for her son.
She screamed at Focho to let her go, even biting him a few times, but he wasn’t reacting, neither to her bites or screams. Instead, he picked her up and dragged her back inside her apartment. Don’t let his introduction in this story fool you, the two of them were great friends, Focho cared for Džana like she was his sister.
Back in her apartment – she calmed down, but only a bit, just enough for her to stop running to the bridge to get murdered. They talked about the situation and discussed the best way to save Tarik for several hours, deciding in the end that they should wait for the darkest moments in the night to rush to the bottom of the bridge and get him out of there.
The snipers showed mercy to a little boy – but would they show it to a full grown woman? Džana was willing to take that risk, but Focho wasn’t. Even though it made her unhappy and angry with him, she knew he was right. And with that, the longest hours of her life started ticking away.
When it got much darker they took two chairs outside, putting them right on the brink of being visible by the snipers. “Vultures” she named them as they sat down. They weren’t close enough to save Tarik, but they were close enough to hear him, and what they heard, they didn’t like, as much as they didn’t understand it.
Tarik seemed to be having a conversation with himself under that bridge. Džana feared the worst, that her boy had lost his mind. The thought of that teared her up once again. Even though her crying was quite loud and right next to him, Focho still overheard some parts of what Tarik was saying – or 'asking', would be more accurate...
Focho recalled a few questions he asked – 'Why are you so tall' – 'Why do you have so many hairs' – 'Are you cold', and so on. All of them painted a detailed picture of the stranger Tarik was together with down there, one that Focho wasn’t liking one bit.
Sarajevo would be pitch dark very soon – marking the beginning of their rescue attempt. The plan was straightforward and bold. Get in, get Tarik and get out, as simple as that. But no matter how simple and quick their plan was, those snipers were still there, preying over the city, even through the night.
They were Džana’s biggest worry as the execution of their plan neared, while Focho didn’t feel the same way. He decided not to share it, but what scared him besides the potential sniper fire coming their way, was the person Tarik was speaking with under that bridge.
At first – he wrote it off as the kid’s imaginary friend, but the more he listened to Tarik, the more he was convinced something was off. It just didn’t feel right to Focho, but to not add more stress on Džana, he zipped it.
Focho counted from one to three to signal their sprint to the bridge. One. Two.. Three... They both ran as fast as they could, reaching the bottom of the bridge in what seemed like seconds. Adrenaline was pumping through Focho’s veins, through Džana’s as well, with motherly love mixed in.
They found Tarik easily, he was hiding in one of the corners, shielding his tiny body behind the metal skeleton of the bridge. Focho grabbed Tarik, who held on as tight as he could. Just as they were about to run back to safety, they spotted something across the water...
Just like Tarik, it was also hiding, but its body was too massive to pull it off. Džana and Focho spotted it even though it was pitch dark – although it would be more accurate to say they saw its figure.
It was massive and its eyes – green and glowing were staring right at them. They had no time to observe it, they had to run to safety right away, every second mattered. While they crossed the street, several sniper shots went off.
When they were safe behind cover, all of them checked their bodies for wounds. You can get hit without noticing, adrenaline does strange things like that, and if anything proves this it's people taking a Bigfoot sighting casually after running into a snipers line of fire...
Everyone was fine and unharmed, their plan worked perfectly. Džana cried once again – but this time, those were tears of joy running down her face. Those sniper shots weren't meant for them – whose misfortune they signaled, we will never know. After she had her reunion with her son, Džana thanked Focho and invited him over for coffee, who accepted her offer and went to her place together with them, where Amina was waiting.
Some time passed before they talked about the mysterious creature they had a brief encounter with. Well, two of them had a brief one – Tarik had several hours to get to know the creature, and he also saw it in broad daylight.
Tarik described the “man” as hairy, huge and as a friend. People asked him why he’d call it a friend and Tarik replied saying that he saw the creature wave at him from under the bridge multiple times, and that it seemed lonely, so he took the first chance he had to give it a visit.
Most people who heard the story jumped to the conclusion that the creature wasn’t planning on making friends with Tarik – but dinner. One question remains though, if that were the case – why didn't it eat him when it had the chance? It just had to cross the river to get to its prey.
There is one simple explanation, that the creature was scared of water. Tarik also added the creature moaned and growled at him from time to time. After hearing those details from her son, Džana stayed up all night once and watched the area under the bridge closely.
She couldn’t see too well, but luckily for her – at one point during the night, someone fired a strong flare into the sky, illuminating the area she was looking at perfectly, but she still saw nothing there.
Only the strong, red flare getting reflecting by Miljacka. The bridge where Tarik hid and their apartment outlived the war, and are still standing to this day. What isn't, is Džana's husband, who lost his legs in the war – but lived.
They all still live together in Sarajevo, but they moved apartments, maybe because Džana felt that the creature under the bridge wasn't giving up, unlike the snipers...
Chapter 6
