Besieged Sarajevo Responded to the Aggressor: Tunnel of Salvation Celebrates 22nd Birthday

The Sarajevo Tunnel, dug beneath the runway of the International Airport during the fiercest siege of Sarajevo in 1993, is one of the greatest phenomena during the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the most closely guarded secret of Sarajevo in that period. 720 meters long and 1.5 meters high, it represented the only route through which food, medicine, and other supplies reached besieged Sarajevo. It connected two parts of the free territory under the control of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dobrinja and Butmir. Hence it was named the "Tunnel D-B" or the Tunnel of Salvation, writes the Bosnian news agency Patria.

It was dug on July 30, 1993, at 8:50 PM.

As retired Major General Rašid Zorlak, the conceptual creator of the Sarajevo Tunnel, previously revealed to the Patria agency, he got the idea of how to connect the two free territories one night in 1992 while running across the runway.

- I knew that there must be a drainage system under the runway, so I thought it could be used for a passage beneath it. In other words, that night of November 5 to 6, '92, the idea of digging a tunnel dawned on me – says Zorlak.

The project for the tunnel was done by engineer Nedžad Branković, who was 31 at the time. Both agree that everyone who dug even one shovel of earth in this tunnel has great merit for its creation, especially the Bosnian miners who worked on this project 24 hours non-stop.

The drainage system that could be used for a passage under the runway as such did not exist. But in a few months, the Sarajevo Tunnel would exist.

Even today, 22 years later, numerous tourists come to the Tunnel of Salvation to see the lifeline of besieged Sarajevo.