Sarajevo War Tunnel & Museum

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More background info: For background and context see under Bosnia and Herzegovina in general and under Sarajevo in particular.

  
When Sarajevo fell under siege by Serbian forces in 1992 the city became cut off from all supplies from the outside world until late 1995. So how did the Sarajevans survive the 44 months of isolation? One lifeline was the airport, whose use the UN had negotiated with the Serbs to fly in humanitarian aid. As far as food was concerned, that was indeed the main source of supplies for the citizens of Sarajevo. However, other supplies, such as weapons and ammunition, but also fuel and electricity, were made available through the tunnel.

The airport bordered on to free Bosnian territory, so to get there, crossing the airstrip was necessary – which was both dangerous (because of sniper fire) and not encouraged by the UN forces (who didn't want to jeopardize their deal with the Serbs for using the airport). So the Bosnian army decided to dig a tunnel under the airport. This would then connect the district of Dobrinja on the city side of the airport with the suburb of Butmir on the other side, from where access to free Bosnian territory was possible. The names of these two suburbs also gave the tunnel its "official" name: Tunel D-B. On the Butmir side, the entrance/exit of the tunnel was at the house of the Kolar family, who these days run the museum, and whose male members of military age were in the Bosnian army at the time.

The tunnel project was in fact a proper army job, work started in March 1993, and after teams of diggers worked their way along underground in three shifts 24 hours a day for three months, the tunnel was completed in the summer of 1993. It was mostly dug by hand, with just pickaxes and shovels, as heavier equipment was not available.

It may have been a narrow and fragile lifeline, but the ca. 800 yards long and on average little over one and a half metres high tunnel was to prove vital for Sarajevo over the next two years. Not only could more food and medical supplies reach the city's citizens, the defenders of the city also gained access to military supplies that way (which the UN, obviously, would not provide).

  

Later, a high-voltage electricity cable was laid through the tunnel, and also a pipeline for pumping oil to the besieged city. This, in turn, made the tunnel even more dangerous, though – especially as it was also prone to flooding, until more powerful drainage pumps could be installed. So sometimes the men carrying supplies through the tunnel had to wade through deep water, with a high-voltage power cable just overhead and a pipeline full of flammable liquid next to it. They also had to wear masks as there was no ventilation system in the tunnel. Luckily, it all went well. While initially everything had to be carried manually through the tunnel, later a narrow-gauge railway line was installed inside the tunnel, which significantly improved transport logistics. The tunnel not only allowed supplies into Sarajevo, it also opened up a way to get out of the besieged city, meaning injured people could be moved out too for better treatment outside the cut-off city.

 

After the war, with the tunnel no longer being maintained, it quickly became derelict and mostly flooded and collapsed. But on the Butmir side, the Kolar family decided to preserve a short section of the tunnel and built a museum around it, as a memorial to the incredible feat that was the Sarajevo War Tunnel.

 

In the meantime the site has become part of many tourists' sightseeing itinerary ... not just dedicated dark tourists – it's almost part of the mainstream these days. So it is without any doubt the No. 1 individual dark-tourism site in Sarajevo today.

 

This was already the case when I visited the site for the first time, which was in the summer of 2009. Meanwhile the commodification has been expanded, as I saw on my return visit in April 2025. To manage visitor movement they now even have turnstiles with electronic ticket readers (although at the time of my visit they were not in use). The stretch of tunnel that visitors can walk through has been much extended and an all-new tunnel has been built for the way back, so that visitor traffic inside is one-way only. There also seemed to me to be more large exhibits in the museum part.

 

The reconstructed stretch of the original tunnel ends at the edge of the airport as the authorities wouldn’t have allowed it to extend as far as underneath the runway due to safety and security concerns. And beyond that refurbished stretch of tunnel, it is now inaccessible and partially collapsed.

 

The other end of the tunnel in Dobrinja is completely uncommodified for visitors, but my guide in 2025 pointed the building out as we drove past.

 
 
What there is to see: As you arrive at the site, first take in the pockmarked façade of the house above the Butmir tunnel entrance. Here the war scars have not been filled with cement and painted over but have been left in place for dramatic effect. The balcony is now covered with military camouflage netting and the signs above the first floor windows now spell out “tunel spasa” (‘Tunnel of Salvation’) and “kuča kolara” (‘Kolar house’ – after the owners of the site; see above).

 

Once you have purchased your ticket you pass through (or by) the turnstiles to enter the site. In theory there is no prescribed order in which to do the various components of the tunnel museum. There is a “cinema theatre” where a film about the Siege of Sarajevo in general and the War Tunnel in particular is shown as an introduction. So it probably makes sense to start with that.

 

The main attraction, though, is obviously walking through the stretch of the actual tunnel that has been prepared for visitors. On my first visit in 2009, it was just a relatively short stretch of tunnel that was accessible and the floor still had the narrow-gauge railway tracks. This was the preserved 25m stretch of the original tunnel. When I returned in April 2025, the accessible reconstructed stretch of tunnel was much longer (100m), and the rail tracks in this part had been replaced with just a symbolic pattern on the floorboards, probably a health-and-safety measure so people don’t trip over the tracks. Moreover, there is a stack of hard hats for visitors to borrow before going inside the tunnel. And for someone like me who is taller than the tunnel is high, this is a very good idea indeed. I banged my hard hat against the ceiling on several occasions. As the tunnel is only between 1.5 and 1.8m high I had to walk in quite a stooped posture, which made it a bit uncomfortable.

 

But overall walking through the tunnel isn't too claustrophobic an experience (nowhere near as much so as in the Cu Chi tunnels in Vietnam!). You have to use your imagination to get a feeling for what it must have been like walking the entire 800 yards with heavy backpacks and even wading through knee-deep water … Today's visitors are back out in the open after just a few minutes.

 

For exiting the tunnel, an all-new second tunnel has been constructed for the way back – so that there is now only a one-way route. It makes sense in terms of crowd management, given that the original tunnel is only ca. 80 cm wide, but it detracts a little from the place authenticity. However, the fact that the return tunnel is much higher (as well as wider) was welcome, as I no longer had to bend down on the way out. After you’ve dropped off your hard hat (if you’ve used one) you can then turn to viewing the rest of the museum contents.

 

These are partly in the open air, such as digging equipment/tools, ovens, engine parts and all manner of militaria objects. There’s also a specimen of the famous Sarajevo Roses (see under Sarajevo), in this case most likely a copy/mock-up not a real one. Indoors you can find some life-size dioramas with dummies such as a stretcher on a tunnel trolley with an bloodied dummy on it and being pushed by another soldier dummy. Another depicts a mother and infant about to get the little one out through the tunnel (so a kind of equivalent of the Kindertransporte in the pre-WWII era). In addition there are various weapons, both of the initial home-made sort as well as later proper military machine guns and so on. Medical equipment is also on display, as is a small tunnel-railway engine. There are also traditional text panels, but the amount of information conveyed that way is not very great (compared e.g. to the Sarajevo Siege Museum in the city centre).

 

If you're on a guided tour, you will also be given all manner of background information by a live guide, which is very useful, as the artefacts on display may not all be self-explanatory, and textual background info is a little scant. 

 

However there is now also an audio-guide app for smartphones that you can download to provide more information. There are also QR codes dotted around through which you can access parts of the audio guide piecemeal without having to download the app. I can’t say anything about the nature and quality of these audio-guide features since I never used them – because on both occasions I visited I was with a live guide.

 

My guide on my second visit in April 2025, himself a veteran of the Bosnian army, even pointed out a couple of mistakes on the chart of besieged Sarajevo on display at the Tunnel Museum (namely the depiction of Serbian tanks in the hills around Sarajevo – where they could not have gone; instead lighter artillery and mortars were used … in addition to snipers).

 

All in all, visiting the War Tunnel/Tunnel of Hope is almost an obligatory activity even for mainstream tourists when in Sarajevo, and for any dedicated dark tourists it’s essential. A must-do!

 
 
Location: In the south-western Sarajevo suburb of Butmir, on the other side of the airport, at an address that has been renamed accordingly: uliza Tuneli, at No. 1!