It's hard to miss the irony of Asim Mahmutovic's coffins.

They come from the ruins of Sarajevo's glory days, built of wooden planks from the burned-out 1984 Olympic ice skating pavilion.

Mahmutovic hates to use the once-famous stadium for the endless victims of Bosnia's bloody war. "It's very difficult for us," he said. "But we have no other options."

The pavilion-where champion hockey teams skated, where gold medals were won, where the eyes of the world watched the beauty and grace of its finest figure skaters-is now a twisted heap, good for nothing but the undertaker's needs.

Mahmutovic and his colleagues first braved snipers' bullets to travel to the stadium three weeks ago when they ran out of wood. They tore out the rafters and headed back with their sad cargo, enough for only a few days.

"Since it was destroyed completely, we asked the people in the city if we could use whatever we could, especially the wood," he said.

In a city surrounded by enemy Serb troops, "we have a problem getting the materials we need. We have a lot about 20 miles away, and a couple of times we asked UNPROFOR (United Nations Protection Force) to take us there. Since they didn't, we're managing as we can," he said.

And so it was that seven children and young people-killed by a single shell-were buried this week in caskets made of Olympic pavilion wood. So were another 23 civilians and 22 soldiers killed during the past week in the war.

"This last one was a fighter, he died yesterday," said Mahmutovic's colleague, Osman Lakovic. The dead man had been shot through the heart by a sniper.

In the Bosnian Muslim tradition, the coffins have no tops, but wood planks are laid at an angle in the graves to cover them when they're buried.

"We can still find some pieces of wood around, but it's not enough. The Muslims have a special way of burying people-we need wood for the coffin and then you need wood above it, too, in the grave," Mahmutovic said. "That's the custom, that's been tradition for years. We don't want dirt to fall on the body."

His co-worker, Dulaga Vrabac, made the most recent trip to the stadium, gathering enough wood for 20 coffins. "The snipers were shooting, but we're used to that," Vrabac said. "We don't mind."

"We have experience with it, and we believe in destiny," said Mahmutovic.

When they return again depends on the intensity of the war.

"It depends on the situation," said Mahmutovic. "For example, if a mortar falls and we have 10 or 15 dead people, we'll have to go back tomorrow to get more.

"Sometimes I wonder how we manage. We had 52 funerals in one day last year, and another day we had 40.

"Since the beginning of the war last year, we've had over 6,000 funerals-just us alone. Normally, we'd have 1,200 or 1,300 a year."

There are so many graves now that the cemetery, which is adjacent to the old Olympic grounds, has spread to a former soccer field; the first grave there was dug where the goal posts used to be.

Nowadays, plain wooden boards mark row after row of freshly dug graves where soccer players used to run.

The undertakers wonder if the world will turn its attention here, as it did nine years ago, if it learns the tragic fate of the once-great Olympic pavilion.

"When foreign countries hear we're using wood from the stadium, maybe they'll feel something. Maybe they'll do something," said Lakovic.

"It was really great (in 1984). Lights were shining all over the city," Mahmutovic recalled. "In the beginning we didn't have snow, but it fell just in time for the skiing."

Who ever would have thought it could end like this? "This," Mahmutovic said, "is symbolic."