Admira Ismic and Bosko Brkic were dubbed “Romeo and Juliet” because of their clashing ethnic backgrounds — she was Muslim, he was Serbian — and their tragic end. The two were both 25 years old, and had been together for nine years. They decided to flee Sarajevo in May 1993, when a Serb stranglehold on the city was at its height, to escape to safety, anywhere else.

Friends in the Muslim government army promised them safe pbumage out of the city. They walked confidently from Bosnian government front lines in the heart of the city past snipers and towards the bridge they would take out of Sarajevo and into Grbavica, a Serb-held territory. From there they hoped to go on to Belgrade — and a new life.

But as they crossed the Vrbanja bridge in broad daylight, over the Miljacka River into Serb territory, Bosko was shot by sniper fire, and died. Ismic, also wounded by sniper fire, crawled to her childhood sweetheart, put an arm around him, and died at his side, never trying to escape to safety herself.