TUNNEL OF HOPE

Many inhabitants of Sarajevo owe their lives to this "Tunnel of Hope" (Tunel Spasa). Dug during the first weeks of the 1992-1996 siege, this narrow tunnel was the only link with the rest of the country for over three years. It runs under the airport runway, between the districts of Dobrinja (Sarajevo) and Butmir (Ilidža) for 800 m in length and less than 1.5 m in height (less than 1 m on the Dobrinja side). The tunnel is nowadays rather poorly preserved. For safety reasons, it is only possible to visit a small portion of 20 m in length. But this is enough to realize the difficult conditions under which it was built: with shovels and pickaxes with only oil lamps as a source of light. If the airlift set up by the UN allowed the delivery of a large part of the food and medicine needed by the besieged population, the tunnel was mainly used to evacuate civilians and bring in contraband (cigarettes, alcohol, etc.), but also arms and ammunition, theoretically forbidden by the UN. Equipped with rails and wagons from 1994, the tunnel will also allow the passage of electrical and telephone cables, as well as a pipeline for fuel. The entrances were located in the garage of a building on the Dobrinja side and in the house of the Kolar family in Butmir. In the latter house, which is riddled with bullet holes, there is a small museum about the history of the tunnel.