A fragile peace had settled over the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo when images of a devastated World Trade Center came to Amina Omicevic over CNN.

``We thought, `Now the whole planet is at war. Has World War III begun?' We were very scared,'' recalled Omicevic, 17, who is attending Middletown High School this year as an exchange student. A Bosnian Muslim, she and her family lived for 3 1/2 years in a city surrounded by Serbian fighters. Often, there was no electricity. Sometimes, there was no food or water. When she went to school and her mother and father went to work, snipers' bullets pierced the air.

Wednesday evening, she will speak on the South Green as part of the city's 9/11 remembrance. Middletown elementary and high school students will be among those joining her at the 6 p.m. gathering, sharing poems and essays about their lives after 9/11. Later, there will be a concert of patriotic music.

 Omicevic, here through the Middletown Rotary Club's international student-exchange program, will draw parallels between the life-changing violence in Bosnia and in the U.S. She'll speak of the role of young people in both countries in promoting peace and public service.  

``I know for me, in my country, if my generation does nothing, then I don't know what kind of future there will be,'' said Omicevic, who is staying with city resident Lynn Gamerdinger.

 Memories of the war dominate her thoughts, and she is driven by a commitment to help rebuild her country. For the moment, though, she is living the life of a teenager again, soaking up the atmosphere of a large American high school and loving it.

 One afternoon last week, she shed her overloaded book bag, settled in front of a computer screen at Russell Library, and tapped out a long e-mail about her Middletown experience to a friend back in Sarajevo.

 ``I'm enjoying it here very much -- the teachers are great. But I want to go to college in my country and stay in my country and help it develop,'' Omicevic said.

``Meeting Amina has been a remarkable experience,'' said Gamerdinger, who works for an investment-management company in New Haven. ``One of her goals is to help people understand that her country is still ravaged.''

 Other speakers at the South Green gathering will include Middletown Fire Chief Robert Ross and Arthur Meyers, who directs the Russell Library and who, as a Rotarian, helped bring Omicevic to the city. Meyers, who for the last five years has helped organize naturalization ceremonies in Middletown, will talk about the importance of diversity in post-9/11 America.

 As he did in a moving Memorial Day tribute to the fallen firefighters, police and rescue personnel, Middletown's Philip Cacciola, a retired Army colonel with 30 years of service, will speak of sacrifice.

 Church bells will toll Wednesday morning, marking the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the collapse of the towers and the crash of the fourth hijacked airliner in Pennsylvania.