Nedžad Branković: The Sarajevo Tunnel is proof that we are not an incapable nation

Sarajevo is today marking the 21st anniversary of the breakthrough of the "Tunnel D-B", reports the BiH news agency Patria (NAP).

Dug under the runway of Sarajevo's only airport during the fiercest siege of Sarajevo in 1993, it is one of the greatest phenomena during the Serbian aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina and Sarajevo's most closely guarded secret of that time.

Measuring 720 meters long and 1.5 meters high, it represented the only route through which food, medicine, and weapons arrived in Sarajevo. It connected two parts of the free territory under the control of the Army of RBiH: Dobrinja and Butmir. Hence its name "Tunnel D-B". For Sarajevo, it meant nothing else but - life!

The idea for the "Tunnel D-B" came from the now retired general of the Army of BiH, Rašid Zorlak, who spends his retirement days mostly at his apiary in Malešići near Ilijaš. The project for the tunnel was done by Dr. Nedžad Branković, then the best engineer in besieged Sarajevo, who was only 31 years old. Both agree that everyone who dug even one shovel of earth for this tunnel deserves great credit for its creation, especially the BiH miners, who worked on this project continuously for 24 hours.

- There is no life situation, no predicament, from which there is no way out - Dr. Branković told the Patria agency. And they, he says, found it in the tunnel in wartime Sarajevo. He believes that every era has its tunnel. And this, he says, the difficult political and economic situation in which BiH currently finds itself, has a way out. It just requires finding the formula and believing in oneself.

- Unfortunately, every day we beat ourselves up and say we are the worst, the most corrupt... That is not true. If we continue like this, we don't need an enemy. We will destroy ourselves - says Dr. Branković. He warns that Bosniaks must regain confidence in themselves. And, precisely, the "Tunnel D-B" can be an inspiration that Bosniaks can indeed be capable.

Looking from today's distance, Branković says he has worked on much more complex projects than the "Tunnel D-B". But, considering the situation in which the Sarajevo tunnel was built, and its significance for Sarajevo, which was already suffocating under aggressor shells, he has never, and probably never will, work on a more responsible job, on which the lives of tens of thousands of people directly depended.

He admits that, as a 31-year-old, immature man, he was not aware of the burden that the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina had placed upon him at the time.

- What does a child know about a 200-kilogram rail - says Branković with a laugh, who ten years after the tunnel was dug would become the Prime Minister of the Federation of BiH.

General Rašid Zorlak, who initiated the project of digging the "Tunnel D-B", the "lifeline" of besieged Sarajevo, stated in a previous interview with the Patria agency that the tunnel was nothing else but the best response to the aggressor at that time.

- As we lay that night in 1992 with our heads tucked into the basement windows of a house near the airport, waiting for an opportunity to return to safe territory, I never felt more miserable. I cursed the Chetniks, I thought about Bosnia, about the people, about the possibilities of fighting, about the persistence and indestructibility of our people - said Zorlak. It was then that the idea was born in his head that would bring life and hope back to the city of Sarajevo, which had already been under siege for days.

- I knew there had to be a drainage system under the runway, so I thought it could be used for passage underneath it. In other words, on the night of November 5th to 6th, '92, the idea of digging a tunnel came to me - Zorlak recalled.

A drainage system that could be used for passage under the runway did not exist as such. But in a few months, the Sarajevo tunnel would exist. It was broken through on July 30, 1993, at 8:50 PM.