July 20th, 253 Years Ago: Plague Appeared in Sarajevo, Claiming 15,000 Lives

Mula Mustafa Bašeskiija followed the social, economic, and political events of Sarajevo for a full 58 years. This chronicler, whose exact birth date is unknown, recorded, among other things, that 15,000 people died of plague in Sarajevo in 1762.

Bašeskiija recorded that the plague appeared precisely on July 20, 1762, first in Vratnik, where a person infected with the plague came from the province of Čabrić in Vratnik, who died immediately. Then his brother, hadži Sulejman Čabrić, a coppersmith, also died.

After that, the plague appeared in Hrid, Čekaluša, Banjsko Brdo. In fact, after the plague appeared in Vratnik, it first spread to Sunbul-mahala, Pasja mahala, then to Koševo, Berkuša, and Souk-Bunar.

Therefore, the plague initially ravaged the outskirts of the city, among the poor. Because of this, prominent citizens believed and concluded that the plague would not affect them. This disease ravaged for a full three years and killed about 15,000 souls in the city of Sarajevo itself, reports NAP.