JORDI had his doubts on Sunday morning. He wanted to leave. At 12.10 on Sunday afternoon a mortar bomb dropped out of the sky like a shot putt and killed him.
He was from Barcelona, 25 years old and wore his thick black shiny hair in a pony tail. It was his first job and he told his friend, Santiago, who had a bit job with Associated Press, that he wanted to be a war photographer. His newspaper had put up $1,000 for the trip, $100 for each picture. His last picture was a shot of a man fishing in the river in the centre of Sarajevo with a burnt-out building rising above.
The mortar bomb came as mortar bombs do in Sarajevo, falling out of the sky from no particular place with no particular logic except terror. David Brauchli, the 27-year-old photographer, had a bullet-proof vest. Jordi had none.
╥Fuck, I╒ve been hit,╙ he said. ╥The blood is coming out of my chest.╙
David crawled into a doorway with shrapnel in his groin and leg. ╥Help us,╙ he shouted.
Jordi died quickly, losing consciousness on the pavement. David Brauchli was operated on immediately and survived.
On Monday they took Jordi╒s body to the mortuary and laid him down beside a woman who had turned black. ╥These days people just can╒t get to the hospital to collect their dead,╙ his doctor said.
For the last month the siege of Sarajevo has been covered from the outside, from the Bosnia Hotel six miles from the city. Last Thursday it was hit by mortar bombs. The BBC were leaving, ITN telephoned London ╤ they were leaving too. The television teams left at five on Friday morning and the rest, led by Tony Smith and David Brauchli of Associated Press, moved into town.
On Monday afternoon the Red Cross convoy winding along a small country road was hit by mortar bombs. Frederique Maurice, the Swiss leader of the convoy, died from wounds to his face and neck on Sunday night. His two companions were seriously injured and the medicines and food they brought went up in flames as a rocket sliced through their white lorry with its red cross.
Sarajevo is surrounded by hills, held by the Serbian militia and what remains of the Yugoslav federal army. Being in the city is like being in a doll╒s house that a giant has lifted the roof off of. Running past the Bristol Hotel had been the worst. The road is filled with holes that look like great splashes of ink where the mortar bombs have hit. We hear the bullets. Perhaps for us ╤ perhaps not. At the crossroads a van had been hit by a rocket and as it burst into flames the men inside tried to crawl out. One had lost a part of his leg and as he dragged himself away from the van the snipers picked him off. One bullet, then another until he finally lay down on the pavement and died.
The Belvedere Hotel became our haven, hidden under the poplar trees in a side street. The owner, Druskic Suleyman, had played centre-forward for Udinese in northern Italy and earned $3 million. He had returned to Sarajevo, his home town, to get married and set up the Belvedere Hotel. ╥I know this will all go up in smoke some day soon,╙ he said.
After Jordi Puyol died and David Brauchli was wounded we decided it was time to leave.
On the road out we passed the burnt-out trams in Titova Street, where the corpses of nine soldiers had rotted for days, then passed the crossroads and the burnt-out electrical switching station.
On the road from the city the first of the women and children from the children╒s convoy trying to escape from the city were turning back. She was in her mid-thirties with two children walking back in the rain. She had two brown-paper bags and the children were carrying blankets that dripped on to the wet pavement. The children╒s convoy had been stopped at the Serbian militia checkpoint. No way out.
There were 3,500 women and children in the convoy. The mile-long queue would wait all day in the rain to be turned back as night fell. In the back of each car were children sitting amid bursting suitcases. Round the cars the Serbian militia in blue uniforms and green camouflage carried Kalashnikovs and strolled up and down past their little hostages.
It took 12 hours to get to the coast. Tony Smith of the AP in a smashed-up car led us through the checkpoint saying: ╥We have one wounded and one dead.╙ The coffin was our passport.
In the morning we woke in a hotel by the sea. Jordi╒s father was coming to take his son╒s body back to Barcelona. Eric wanted to buy clothes for the corpse. We thought about a suit but decided on a white T-shirt and denim trousers.
