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Wounded Mother Unaware Sniper Killed Her Child

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<i> Associated Press</i>

One day after 7-year-old Nermin Divovic was shot dead on a Sarajevo street, his body lies in the city morgue awaiting the return of his soldier-father before it can be buried.

About 100 yards from the morgue, his mother, Dzenana Sokolovic, lies in the hospital, unaware her son is dead.

Nermin was shot in the head Friday by a Bosnian Serb sniper as he sprinted across Sarajevo’s notorious “Sniper Alley.” More than 1,500 children have been slain in the city during the 2 1/2-year war.

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His mother was wounded by the same bullet that killed her son.

“She doesn’t know about her child,” said Mediha Smajli, a nurse at Kosevo Hospital, where the mother was recovering Saturday. “Everybody’s coming here, but nobody’s telling her anything.”

Neighbors said Nermin’s father, Pasa Divovic, was told of the death and was rushing back to Sarajevo from the front in central Bosnia.

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