Engineer Enes Baralić, co-creator of Sarafix, dies in Sarajevo — Balkan Insight

Engineer Enes Baralić, one of the co-creators of the Sarafix external medical fixator, which was used to save the limbs of people wounded during the 1992–1995 siege of the city, has died in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, at the age of 84. Media reported Baralić’s death, Balkan Insight writes.

A device for those wounded during the siege

During the 1,425-day siege of Sarajevo by Bosnian Serb forces, local hospitals received large numbers of wounded people. According to the outlet, nearly 70% of the victims suffered severe limb injuries from bullets and shell fragments. Supplies of imported medical materials were quickly exhausted because of the humanitarian blockade.

Orthopedists Sukrija Džozić and Raib Salihefendić developed a modification of an external fracture fixator. To manufacture the device from industrial raw materials, they enlisted Baralić, a mechanical engineer and director of an enterprise within the state industrial conglomerate Energoinvest. The device was named the Sarajevo Wartime Fixator, or Sarafix.

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More than 4,000 fixators

More than 4,000 fixators were manufactured at an Energoinvest enterprise in besieged Sarajevo. Due to equipment shortages, they were reused after sterilization. The devices were delivered to hospitals near the front line through underground tunnels and also by bicycle under sniper fire.

Džozić said that Baralić created a prototype within 10–20 days after receiving the doctors’ initial sketches, and also organized the production and delivery of fixators to surrounded enclaves, including Srebrenica, Mostar and Goražde. Sarafix won gold medals at international innovation exhibitions in Brussels and Geneva in 1995 and 1996. In 2001, the Sarajevo administration awarded the three co-creators the Sixth of April Award for their contribution to science and humanitarian technologies.

Džozić donated one of the original fixators and the medals to the Historical Museum of Sarajevo. Another Sarafix, he said, was donated to a museum in London by a British volunteer colleague. Baralić’s funeral was to take place at the Vlakovo City Cemetery in Sarajevo.