Sarajevo, Bosnia

View of Sarajevo
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Today was our last day in Sarajevo, we joined a tour from the hostel we stayed in on the first night, it was absolutely amazing!  We first visited the famous tunnel that was built during the war.  The purpose of the tunnel was to transport food and weapons into the city.  The tunnel was 800m long and went 5m under the ground from the city out underneath the airport to the 'Bosnia Free Zone' where the Serbs were unable to bomb.  It was 1m wide and 1.6m high, when the civilians went to collect food they would have to carry it back through the tunnel.  They had an 'old lady' bag which was 35kg, but women were expected to carry 50kg, and men 70 - 100kg!!  The Serbs knew about the tunnel but were unsure of the exact location, they frequently bombed around the area but never found the exact spot.  When the Bosnians built the tunnel they expected it only to last for 6 months as it was built with wood and some parts iron, but there was so much activity through the tunnel (up to 3000 civilians per day) that they thought it would collapse before long.  The tunnel actually lasted for 2 years from the time they built it to the time the war ended.  The tunnel took the civilians of Bosnia 4 months and 4 days to finish.  Most of the tunnel has now collapsed but they have maintained 25m of it as a museum for the public to visit.  Just at the entrance of the tunnel there is a 'Sarajevo Rose' where the Serbs got very close to bombing the actual entrance, thought this one still actually has the shell embedded in the concrete.  We were then taken to an old Jewish Cemetary that overlooked 'Snyper's Alley', we where told that the civilians would have to sprint through here with up the 6 canisters of water for their family.  If they were not quick enough they woud be killed and their body would lie dead in the streets for weeks as nobody wanted to risk their own life to move them.  As I have said before, it is so surreal walking through the streets and especially through the tunnel, to think of what was going on in those exact places in the war.

Jewish Cemetary
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The tour here ended and we went with 3 other people we had met on the tour for coffee and heard all about their journeys.