The mayor of Sarajevo, Benjamina Karic, said after the murder of a 31-year-old woman by her ex-partner on Monday that domestic violence has become “our daily reality” in Bosnia and cannot be prevented or eradicated by existing legislation.
“I once again appeal to all levels of government to change the laws and practices and discourage evil before it happens. On behalf of the City of Sarajevo, I extend condolences to the family of the murdered young woman,” Karic wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday evening.
After murdering the woman, her former partner left her body in her apartment and took their four-year-old son with him.
Following negotiations, the child was rescued and the 34-year-old perpetrator was arrested.
According to the media reports, the perpetrator, named as E.B., recently got out of prison, where he was serving a sentence for domestic violence.
Bosnia has seen a series of protests in recent months after the murder of a woman by her former husband in the town of Gradacac was livestreamed on Meta’s social media platform Instagram.
Nermin Sulejmanovic, a former bodybuilder with a criminal record, started his livestream by saying that viewers “will see what a live murder looks like”, then took a gun and shot his ex-wife.
Sulejmanovic then shot two more people dead and wounded three others, including a police officer.
Over the past seven years, a total of 60 women have lost their lives through violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with eight cases in 2022.
The figure could potentially be higher because of the lack of official statistics on femicides in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
