Suada Dilberović
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Suada Dilberović (May 24, 1968 - April 5, 1992) was a Bosnian medical student at the University of Sarajevo who became the first person in Sarajevo to be killed during the Bosnian War.
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 April 5, 1992 in response to events all over Bosnia 100,000 people of all nationalities turned out for a peace rally in Sarajevo. Serb snipers in the Holiday Inn hotel (the Serbian Democratic Party rented several rooms in the hotel) 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 (1958-1992) were on the Vrbanja bridge at the time. The Holiday Inn hotel has a direct line of sight to the bridge putting Suada Dilberović and Olga Sučić in a perilous position when the shooting started. Suada Dilberović was the first person shot and was followed a few seconds later by Olga Sučić. The bridge on which Dilberović and Sučić 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.
Contrary to popular belief Suada Dilberović was not the first person to be killed during the Bosnian War. The first deaths were in Bijeljina on April 1, 1992 after the town was attacked by the JNA and the Serb Volunteer Guard and several hundred Bosniaks were murdered. However, Suada Dilberović was the first person to be killed in Sarajevo after the war reached the capital city and the Siege of Sarajevo began.
