ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 11, 1996 TAG: 9604110061
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: SARAJEVO, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA
THEIR PAIN BECAME a symbol for Sarajevo's plight. Now, the lovers share a grave where they shared their lives.
The couple whose love and death came to symbolize Sarajevo's agony came home in coffins and were buried together Wednesday, ending the odyssey of a Serb man and his Muslim girlfriend the world knew as Romeo and Juliet.
Bosko Brkic and his girlfriend, Admira Ismic, died in sniper fire on Sarajevo's most dangerous bridge in May 1993. Their bodies lay in a last embrace for a week before being recovered and buried in a Serb-held suburb.
With the war over, Ismic's father wanted his daughter and her beloved to rest in the city where they met. On Wednesday, the two were lowered into a joint grave in Lion Cemetery alongside thousands of other victims of Sarajevo's siege.
Side-by-side wooden markers engraved with their names mark the spot.
``This is where they were killed, and this is where they should have been buried,'' said Zijad Ismic, as his wife, Nermina, sobbed beside the grave.
``Just like Romeo and Juliet,'' said a 28-year-old friend, Senada Smakovic, who cried quietly nearby.
Ismic said he tried in vain to find Brkic's family to get permission for the reburial. Brkic's mother came from Belgrade, the Yugoslav capital, for the couple's first funeral in 1993.
The story of the couple's love and death outgrew their personal tragedy to become a symbol of Sarajevo's plight.
Both were 25, and they had been together for nine years when they died. Asked by Brkic's mother at the start of the Bosnian war if politics could ever separate them, Admira Ismic replied that only a bullet could do that.
LENGTH: Short : 44 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Nermina Ismic mourns at the new grave site inby CNBSarajevo of her daughter Admira, a Muslim buried Wednesday with her
Serbian lover, Bosko Brkic.