Pretty Village under bombs – Pretty Village was based on them: ‘We didn’t even have any urine left to drink!’

In just 97 metres of this short tunnel, a war drama unfolded such as only life itself can script. These people drank urine to survive, wounded, under a rain of bullets and bombs, they endured there for nine days. They are alive and speaking exclusively to Kurir, telling the truth about those September days of ’92 in the Brodar tunnel near Višegrad, which became the foundation for the cult anti-war filmPretty Village, Pretty Flame.

Višegrad. We set off from the hotel near the famous Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge. On the left side of the Drina, the Višegrad hydroelectric power plant flashes by. Vital since 1989, when it was built—especially in wartime. The road leads toward Goražde. The tunnels look like they were hacked through the rocks with pickaxes. Every time we pass through, the kids stare in disbelief. At the seventh kilometre from Višegrad—a bridge. We turn and cross the Drina, heading for Rudo. Where the Lim flows into the Drina, there is now a lake. The view is paradise. Emerald water cuts through the canyon. Who would guess this beauty—this Drina—has claimed so many lives through the centuries, through wars.

150–200 metres from the bridge is the Brodar tunnel. Right beneath it, the Lim flows into the Drina. And it truly looks like it was made for a movie set. No rocks to cut through. You’d think it was built without need. What’s more, nicely paved in concrete, with little terraces now overgrown with trees. In ’92 they were still clean. Partisan Road 1990 – says the sign above the entrance. Below, toward the river, still stand the remains of workers’ barracks from 1990. It was built to stop the crumbling of stone.

Inside – time has stood still. Bullet holes, grenade damage, shrapnel scars… Soot-covered ceilings and walls… Even a track in the asphalt left by an armoured vehicle. Thirty years after the war, and the road hasn’t even been resurfaced.

To the right, at the Rudo end, tricolours and commemorative plaques tell that four soldiers of the Višegrad Brigade of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS), officially the 2nd Podrinje Light Infantry Brigade, were killed here. Also a doctor and a nurse, who were in a clearly marked ambulance. And for whose murder no one was held accountable!

We move on—we’ll return the next morning. Rudo. The first stop is The Dr Stojana and Ljubica Health Centre, named after the two women who were killed. In the town centre stands a monument to the First Proletarian Brigade. We all had to know about 21 December 1941. Slightly downhill, a memorial to those killed in the last war. The walls of the memorial room are filled with photos of lost youth. Some of the heroes of our story are there too. Upstairs – the museum of the First Proletarian Brigade! We are welcomed by a life-sized cardboard Tito. His head is falling off

“When his admirers celebrate here, they bring him outside. The wind blows, Tito falls over, and no one reacts. I’m the one who rescues him,” laughs Mirko Stanić, head of the Rudo Veterans’ Organisation.

At a local restaurant, Žarko Toković and Tatjana Marinković await us. Evening is falling. Photos, documents, tears… A story we are yet to fully tell. And others will join it. A story so heavy that our usually carefree driver Vlada, as we drove back to Višegrad late at night, right before Brodar, said:

“I’m afraid to go through that tunnel.”

In the hotel, a room with a view of the bridge. Sleep won’t come – the Drina roars eerily. In the morning – the memorial room in Višegrad. A snapshot of Dayton and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Photos not only of Višegrad’s fallen, but also those from Sarajevo and the surrounding area, whose families had to flee in 1995. Even their bones were moved. But one man from our story is missing – Stevan Panić

And then – straight to Brodar! In September ’92, the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina launched an offensive in the Višegrad and Rudo areas. Brodar was a vital junction. The tunnel, bridge, and surrounding area were among the final defensive lines of Višegrad and the hydroelectric plant held by the Serbs.

On the bench next to me sits Mikailo Šimšić. Visibly nervous. Distrustful. The youngest in the tunnel of death. He was only 21 years old.

“We received orders to guard the bridge to prevent the enemy from crossing. The night before, we were on the hill to the right from here, towards the bridge, where there was a tank and two mortars. On the morning of 9 September, the order came for us to enter the tunnel, seven of us. We had automatic rifles and a machine gun. When we entered, there was no one at the tunnel," says Šimšić, lighting cigarette after cigarette, and adds:

“The Muslims had been crossing over to this side in boats at night, then attacked our positions uphill; four of our men were killed. Our forces had left behind a self-propelled gun and two mortars. The enemy surrounded us, even climbed onto the tunnel.”

Entering the tunnel from the Višegrad Brigade were soldiers Slađan Simić (24) from the village of Jagodina, who would serve as the inspiration for Dragan Bjelogrlić’s character in Pretty Village, Pretty Flame, Vladan Gavrilović (26), Novak Arsić (26) from Veletovo, as well as volunteers Milovan Lučić (28) from Žice with his comrade Stevan Panić (28) from Mala Krsna and Stanko Maćašev (33) from Lazarevac. Maćašev would host us in his home a few days later.

“I'm a war profiteer, you see my profit,” he laughs while hugging his wife Ranka, whom he brought home in October 1993 after 15 months at the front.

“It was 21 June '92, I was on a Raketa bus from Žice heading to the Vardište border crossing. We couldn’t go further; there was gunfire. But the driver, a father of five, suddenly said, ‘If you’ve made up your mind to go, I’ll drive you.’ So off we went. Near Dobrun, three armed men jumped on board," Maćašev tells us.

One of them was Novak Arsić, with whom fate would bind him in the tunnel. The next day he would meet Slađan Simić, whose home he would later live in:

“Slađan’s mother Joka did all my washing.”

It is now early September 1992.

“We turned back from Goražde three times. It was said that Milošević had forbidden us to take it. After the third attempt, loads of troops and equipment were left at Brodar. On the evening of the 8th, we were called by the intervention company to head out; Muslims had broken out of Goražde and surrounded our men who needed rescuing. We always went where it was hottest, Slađan Simić led, I was his deputy. At dusk, we set out along the old road. We reached the tunnel at night. A little above was our self-propelled gun, and further up at Meremišlje, our troops," says Maćašev, grimacing:

“This was probably a big mistake, mine and Slađan’s – the lake, we heard paddles, we stopped and watched, but it was deep below. A group of Muslims flanked us and got behind us. If we’d waited there... Our men uphill gave way. Fortunately, the lad on the self-propelled gun, Goran Rađen, who was later tragically killed, removed the firing system and disabled it before they fled. Had he not done that, I don't know what would have become of us, as the Muslims had taken that position.”

This sealed the fate of Vladan Gavrilović too, who was supposed to return to Višegrad with his team.

“He asked me to speak to his commander to join our company. I asked, and he said, ‘Ćanko,’ that’s what they called me, ‘no problem’," he says, continuing:

“That evening of 8 September, two of our trucks full of ammunition were in the tunnel. In the morning, we unloaded about ten boxes from one FAP, each with 2,500 bullets. We also had rifles, rocket launchers... The trucks headed to Rudo with a platoon and a half. We were already engaged in fighting, the enemy was on the tunnel. When the truck with the platoon returned, it was hit near the tunnel before ours, two were killed, one lost a leg.”

He says that Slađan was the first to be seriously wounded, struck below the heart by a shell casing. They called for help over the radio. The Višegrad troops were far, but halfway to Rudo was Setihovo, home to the Rudo VRS Brigade – the Fourth Podrinje Light Infantry.

On the lower side of the tunnel, towards the bridge, were Šimšić and Arsić:

“One of them sneaked up and threw a grenade. Novak lost his leg, Mikailo lost teeth and the radio station, the RUP-33."

Šimšić shows us where the grenade fell.

“I kicked the grenade and fired a burst – from the tunnel's end.” Maćašev adds:

“We killed the man who wounded them with a sniper, tracked his shadow. They tried to recover the body; there were two days of fighting over it.”

First to respond was the Lada Niva from Rudo Health Centre, as all eyewitnesses say, clearly marked with red crosses. Inside were Dr Stojana Jojić (32) and nurse Ljubica Kastratović (45). The driver was likely Branislav Paponjak (38) from Rudo, and seated next to him was volunteer Slavoljub Bubanja (30) from Prijepolje.
“Stojana went to the front line, she hadn

’t come home; she was the only unmarried doctor at Rudo Health Centre, so it was said she should go since she had no family. They offered her a transfer to Priboj, to move to safety – she refused, didn’t want to abandon her post. She was truly a person,” says Vida Kostić, Dr Jojić’s sister.

And midwife Ljubica Kastratović, as her daughter Tatjana Marinković tells us, went to the front line for the first time on Saturday, 5 September 1992, to Setihovo. On 9 September, they headed to Brodar.

“The Muslims opened fire on them already from Strmica, below Setihovo,” says her daughter.

When the Niva approached the tunnel, they came under fire.

“The ambulance was on the left side when facing towards Rudo from the tunnel, under a rock, about 15 metres from the entrance. I was the only one who ran to the passenger door; Brane was in that seat. We pulled him out. Bullets were falling like rain. Both of us were grazed on the ear. We pulled out Bubanja too. The women were in the back, but I didn’t see them,” says Maćašev, who recalls:

“Brane was wearing slippers; they kept slipping off. Barely three or four minutes had passed when Braće shouted: ‘The doctor and nurse!’ We went again, but an RPG hit the rear wheel of the Niva. Everything was gone! Maybe we could have got them out right away, if we’d known. But how they died, I didn’t see. No one could have survived in that Niva."

And the Muslims, he says, pulled it out at night, unnoticed, after retreating inside when rocket launchers were fired at them.

And Šimšić shows us a dip on the left side of the tunnel, from the Rudo direction:

“Here, in the ditch, was a machine gun nest, where the doctor and nurse were killed.”

Next to the tunnel, Marinković shows us photos. There used to be a stone slab where they were allegedly buried. This was told to her by one of the three captured Serb women the Muslims brought to the tunnel. None of them are still alive..

“Milka from Bursić told me they said: ‘Here lie two of your Chetnik women. If anyone comes looking, know they’re buried here.’ “

“They were buried here, man,” says Šimšić by the tunnel.

“How come you didn’t hear when they were buried?” asks Ljubica’s daughter.

“We couldn’t hear, we were in the middle of the tunnel,” he replies.

“Did they throw my mother’s head into the tunnel to play football with you?” she sobs.

“No,” he says, and the others confirm, “there was no head.”

“On the sixth or seventh day, they sent through one of those women an envelope: ‘Open it, open it,’ they shouted. It was blue, unsealed, I think it had an eyebrow or eye inside. I quickly pushed it away with my foot, scared it was a bomb. They didn’t throw the head, nor have I ever said so,” says Maćašev, adding:

“No way were they buried by the tunnel. I was throwing grenades there every day.”

With the arrival of the Niva, there were nine of them in the tunnel. And they already had their first casualty.

“Poor Lučić was hit by a sniper straight in the heart,” says Maćašev, and Šimšić adds:

“We called him Džaja, he ran to the middle of the tunnel and dropped dead.”

Rudo native Žarko Toković was in Strgačina, about ten kilometres from Brodar towards Rudo, transporting troops across the bridge when he got word to go collect the wounded at Brodar. He drove an armoured truck they nicknamed "Charlie".

"That was an old FAP-13, they had welded five tonnes of sheet metal onto it, fully plated, with just a small slit in front to see where you're driving," says Toković, who ended up in the tunnel at the age of 23.

He had completely different plans. And a valid visa for Australia to join his uncle. A job and residence in Belgrade.

"When the war started, I had even de-registered from the military office in Rudo. But I couldn’t leave everything behind, I came home practically as a volunteer," he says.

Sreten Božović from Božovići (24) was in the passenger seat. They had already been at Brodar that morning, delivering food – canned goods.

"From Strmica we passed a large tunnel, then a smaller one, and 4 km before Brodar they started firing at us. In front of the tunnel, a riddled Niva, we couldn’t see through the opening if there was anyone inside," Božović tells us, whom we meet in Pribojska Banja, while Toković says:

"Red Cross markings were on the roof and sides of the Niva. It was riddled with holes. If I’d known someone was inside, I could have pushed it into the tunnel. I tried turning the truck around inside the tunnel to get out. But all the tyres were shot out, the armour just dropped, and I couldn’t move."

He shows us the sheet metal marks on the asphalt. And he’s the one, all agree, who saved them by blocking the tunnel with the truck, making it impenetrable to bullets.

"We burst into the middle of the fight, already multiple wounded. Slađan had a big bruise under his armpit, a bullet knocked out several of Slavoljub’s teeth, blood was pouring. They were firing from both sides. My knee and shoulder were injured, Novak’s leg was blown off, we tied it. But after three or four days, a living man stinks unbearably – gangrene," says Toković, while Božović says they lifted slabs from the tunnel's drainage channels to make shelters.

This was the final count in the tunnel – 11 men, one already dead. From the start, there was an agreement – no surrender.

"Someone shouted through a megaphone, introduced himself as Captain Sejdić (Ahmet Sejdić, commander of the First Višegrad Brigade of the BiH Army, ed.), telling us to surrender, that we’d be exchanged. No! They’d torture us. And even if it came to it, we’d rather kill ourselves than surrender," says Božović

It was hell, day and night.

"Tear gas, grenades, look – the tunnel is like a sieve. I was wounded by a grenade, I still have 25 pieces of shrapnel in me, from head to toe. Feel it, that’s iron," he shows us a lump under the skin on his wrist.

Toković was hit by a ricochet in the back on the third or fourth day – it’s still lodged there.

"On the second day, they piled up planks, shed panels, tyres… at the exit towards the bridge to block us in completely. We spilled some fuel, Slavoljub set fire to a greatcoat and threw it on. Everything burned, only half a metre of stones remained," says Božović. So they placed rags over their mouths and lowered their heads closer to the asphalt where the draught blew, so they could breathe.

"Slavoljub made me a breastwork from slabs in front of the truck so I could shoot. When they hit the rocks with a handheld launcher, it struck me in the nose – that’s where these three scars are from," Toković shows us.

In the first few days, fighting went on all day. The enemy also had losses, they say. The Serbs resisted.

"It’s incredible how many bullets and grenades were fired. For the first five days we didn’t sleep. Later it calmed down, probably only guards were left," says Božović, and Maćašev adds:

"Two '84 machine guns under 'Charlie'. They died on the bridge and next to the tunnel, we threw grenades. But our own machine gun also blasted us, the one they captured after slaughtering our men at Blaž, just before we entered the tunnel. They surged across the bridge trying to reach the self-propelled gun, which was thankfully disabled. They later admitted to having 47 killed."

They hadn’t had any water from the beginning.

"We rationed a few sips per day. Most of it went to Arsić, who was up top, badly wounded. There was a 20-litre water container, but it got pierced by a bullet during the shooting—barely two litres left at the bottom. Anyone who really had to eat only had a little. Salty stuff—what are you going to drink after that?!" says Toković, and Maćašev adds:

"We shot at Charlie’s radiator. We crawled underneath, into the engine block—automatic rifles couldn't pierce it, but the TT pistol could. There was also some Corsantin in there. Lucky for us it was mixed with water. My teeth were ruined. And Bubanja’s too. The doctor in Užice said we were lucky not to get jaundice."

By the third or fourth day, they started drinking their own urine. The famous scene from the film mirrors the real thing.

"At first it was me who peed, but it was red like blood. Slađan was badly wounded, and his urine was white. He shouted, 'Come on, let’s have a spritzer!'" Maćašev recalls, while Božović was invited with: "Come on, it’s my birthday—let’s celebrate with some brandy!"

"You pinch your nose and gulp. You’ve got no choice," says Toković quietly, and Božović adds:

"Eventually, we couldn’t even urinate. Nothing left. But at least we had cigarettes—they killed the nerves."

"At night you dream of springs, of water. You nod off, then jolt awake. You think you've slept for hours—it’s been two minutes. Always alert," remembers Šimšić.

One striking scene from the film is of the teacher entering the tunnel, only to be shot by the men who feared she might be carrying explosives. It was based on three captured Serbian women whom the Muslims, according to Maćašev, led on a rope.

"Around day four or five, a woman appeared on the road from Rudo, with a headscarf, holding her side, and they shouted, 'Here’s one of yours—she’s bringing a message, read it.' Wrapped up, you think she’s full of explosives. We shouted, 'Get out! Get out!' and they shouted, 'Go in!' We fired in the air, and she turned back," recalls Toković, while Šimšić adds:

"And those in the tunnel said: 'See what your Serbs are like—they want to kill you. We don’t.'"

They don’t know who exactly was at the tunnel.

"Ljubica might’ve delivered some of them into the world," says Toković, and Šimšić adds:

"They sang, 'Oh Chetniks, surrender...' Slađan recognised the singer’s voice—knew him from the taverns."

"He did have a lovely voice. He used to sing pop music."

"Vlada recognised one of them by voice: 'Ćanko, that’s my schoolmate—we played football together,'" says Maćašev, and adds that there was even a khoja singing at the tunnel.

"All night long. Then they’d throw things—rolling, rolling—you couldn’t tell if it was a rock or a grenade. Then bang."

"They lowered the medical kit that belonged to Stojana and Ljubica. They said all sorts about them—that they were raped. I remember what they said to me," says Maćašev

"'We’re going to skin you,' they told me, because they could tell from my accent I wasn’t from Bosnia."

In all that misery, they even managed to joke.

"We were planning where to grab a drink when we got out. I never believed I’d get out alive. Imagine locking someone down there, throwing stones at them—let alone that much ammunition. Only God spared us," says Božović, whose thoughts were only with his family:

"I’d left behind sons aged two months and two years, and a 20-year-old wife," his eyes fill with tears:

"I’ve struggled all my life. Got married young out of hardship—my parents were bedridden. I had to do everything—milk the cow, wash for myself."

They started thinking about a way out. Maćašev says they even checked if the drainage pipe to the Drina was wide enough to crawl through. It wasn’t. On the fifth day, they tried escaping on the Rudo side:

"Novak smelled of rotting flesh, worse even than the ammonia they threw at us. We tried to carry him out, but they opened fire with a machine gun. No chance. That’s when he realised someone had to die for us to get out."

They didn’t know, says Šimšić, that there was a machine-gun nest in the stream nearby. That’s when Gavrilović was wounded:

"He cried all night, begged for water—and that’s when they realised we didn’t have any."

"He died in my arms. A ricochet opened up his head. 'Stanko, water! Water!' he cried. From up top they shouted: 'Come out—we’ll give you some.'"

The next day brought another provocation:

"From the bridge side, they lowered and raised a 10-litre water container on a rope—down, up, down, up. We tried shooting the rope to drop the container, but we didn’t manage."

There were already two corpses in the tunnel. They placed them in the drainage channel and covered them with slabs. Arsić said his farewells to everyone.

"He took off his gold chain and ring and gave them to me, to pass to his sister. I couldn’t bring myself to do it—I sent them through my own sister," says Šimšić.

He had a grenade, but didn’t want to use it, for fear of hurting someone. He waited for the enemy to open fire first, not wanting to provoke them.

"I personally gave him a pistol—he used mine to shoot himself. We didn’t even notice when he did it," says Božović, and Maćašev adds:

"He gave me his watch and waiter’s wallet—he’d been a waiter at Bela Zemlja near Užice—to take to his mother. I refused to give him my pistol. He shot himself in the temple, blood pouring out."

"Who knows how long we’d have stayed if he hadn’t taken his own life. We wouldn’t have left him alive behind, and no one could have carried him," says Toković.

Now there were three corpses. They couldn’t even urinate anymore. All seven were wounded. That night, 16 September, it was life or death. They had a plan.

"Every evening around eight or half past, when darkness fell, we’d hear a motorboat, then thunder from above. They’d throw a grenade on one side of the tunnel, then the other. Then silence for 15–20 minutes, followed by noise again. We figured that was a shift change or food delivery. We waited — motorboat, first bomb, second bomb. The one above couldn’t wait for the shift, he’d come down straightaway to avoid missing the boat," explains Toković. Maćašev says:
"Just one of us needed to make it. One!

To let them know we were alive, that we hadn’t surrendered."

As he speaks, his daughter Sara walks into the room holding a camouflage jacket from the tunnel. A bullet hole on the sleeve, a little cross under the collar. Everything just like in 1992.

Within a minute, they had reached the exit towards the bridge. Simić and Šimšić went right, down the road to the bridge, then turned right again.

"We had just turned when poor Slađan shouted, 'Mine!' Luckily, it had corroded in the rain, nothing happened. Our own mines, the whole area mined to stop the Muslims crossing. I don’t think it’s been cleared even now," says Šimšić.

The others turned left, towards the Drina.

"Stevo went back into the tunnel. He was lightly wounded in the heel, could walk, but wouldn’t leave his fallen comrade Lučić behind. Maybe he saved our lives, because the next day he was making noise in the tunnel. They didn’t even realise we’d escaped—found out only when they heard on Radio Belgrade that Šimšić and Simić had made it to Višegrad," says Toković.

The remaining five—Toković, Božović, Paponjak, Bubanja, and Maćašev—jumped over the embankment and headed downhill to the Drina. Barracks, a dirt road, bushes.

"In the tunnel we’d already taken off everything we could—even our boots, for swimming. Brane had tied an inner tyre from the truck around his waist, so we could hold onto it in the water, but it came off as he rolled downhill. We made it to the water, and they were 50 metres from us—but didn’t see us. I pleaded, 'Don’t drink too much, you’ll get sick.' But I was the first to drink as much as I could," says Toković.

They entered the water—it was pitch black:

"I’d barely swum 20 metres when someone lit a lighter in the middle of the bridge. We wouldn’t have seen them otherwise. We got out, wind blowing by the Drina, hid in the thicket, huddled together," says Toković. Božović adds:

"The dogwoods were ripe—we ate. Half an hour later, the moonlight made it bright as day—we couldn’t go up or down."

"I couldn’t swallow a drop from the Drina. I lowered the bandage from my arm into the water, soaked it, then squeezed it to drink. We watched them. They were shooting at the tunnel, howling," recalls Maćašev.

Simić and Šimšić were already in the hills.

"At dawn, a pack of wild boars passed by. Slađan said, 'There must be water nearby.' And sure enough, a puddle. But he wouldn’t let me drink: 'No, it’s muddy.' A kilometre down—an actual spring. We drank our fill," says Šimšić, recalling how Simić had thrown away his rifle because he couldn’t carry it—a bullet had pierced his pleura, and later the doctors were astonished he survived nine days.

The five stayed in the thicket all night and day. On the second night, they took to the dirt road, under the bridge, along the old road to Višegrad.

"But in the first tunnel, two Muslims were on guard. Next to them, a water container. Moonlight again. I said, 'Let’s kill them and take the water.' They shouted, 'No!'" recalls Maćašev. They turned into the hills:

"We jumped over the mine that, we later found out, Slađan had tripped on."

"Rock to the right, rock to the left, rock below! Slowly, one would go 20–50 metres ahead, then come back for the rest. All wounded, but moving—you felt nothing. It was so dark we lifted the night sights on the rifle to see. We passed between two of their dugouts, heard them talking," says Toković. Maćašev continues:

"We reached the hill. I said, 'Let me go ahead and see from which side we should descend—whether there are any of them around.' I came back—and my lot had lit a fire! I stomped it out barefoot—Muslims were just 50 metres away."

"We travelled all night, came down onto a road—and had only passed one tunnel from the bridge towards Višegrad! We emerged in some village—the plums were ripe. We gorged on them," says Božović

"I vomited it all up after drinking the water," adds Maćašev.

They moved along the road, spread out so that if the enemy saw them, not all would be hit.

"We came across an abandoned village—a spring in front of a house. There was only water if you pumped it; something had blocked it. One of us couldn’t leave the road, so I soaked the bandage and squeezed it out for him. That was just 300–400 metres from our positions," recalls Toković, who has an oil painting by his daughter Kristina hanging on the wall—of him entering the tunnel.

Maćašev tells what happened as they approached Blaž:

"I went first—I know what they’re like. Left my rifle, raised my hands. They nearly shot Slađan, didn’t believe it was him—he was completely black."

They had been presumed dead.

"The news had already said they’d all been killed—that the bodies were floating down the Drina," recalls Ranka. Božović adds:

"My relatives were waiting at my house for the exchange of bodies."

And all of them made it to Višegrad.

"Temperature at 40, a bullet grazed the top of my head, a ricochet. I went into the tunnel weighing 74 kilos, came out at 58," says Maćašev, while Šimić, speaking in the tunnel, adds:

"I was 21 years old then. I couldn’t last 24 hours now with what I endured for nine days and nights back then."

Simić, Bubanja, Šimšić, and Božović were taken to the hospital in Užice. That’s where Vanja Bulić spoke with Simić and Bubanja and published an article in Duga on 19 December 1992. It led to the film, directed by Srđan Dragojević.

In the meantime, an ordeal began over the exchange of bodies—at least so they could be buried. Goražde, being in a valley, was surrounded by Serbs, and the Muslims needed supplies. Tatjana Marinković obtained documents signed by Ahmet Sejdić. On 23 November 1992, he wrote the following to his superiors, among other things:

"The bodies of eight Chetniks have been offered plus three living civilians (referring to women from the Bursići and Hedrovići areas—the women who were thrown into the tunnel, editor's note), of which, in exchange for two of our living civilians from the Uzamnica camp, two bodies of Chetniks killed at Brodar were given (very likely the doctor and nurse, as everything matches, editor's note), and for six bodies of Chetniks killed at Meremišlje, symbolic quantities of food (five tonnes of flour)."

In a report dated 1 December, Sejdić stated that an exchange had taken place on 25 November: "Twelve corpses of Chetniks killed in the battle at Meremišlje and four corpses of Chetniks killed in the battle at the Lim/Brodar on 9 September 1992 were exchanged, and in return, the plan was to receive specific quantities of food: six tonnes of flour; three tonnes of potatoes; half a tonne of beans; half a tonne of sugar; 0.2 tonnes of rice; and 10 cartons of cigarettes."

“I don’t know what it says, but I know they were exchanged for 27 tonnes of flour—I was at the exchange," says Maćašev, and adds:

"They cut the legs and arms off four of the tunnel men, then set them on fire."

Everyone later returned to their posts. Bubanja was killed in January 1993, Simić in April 1994.

"At night, when my hands start to sweat, I go to Jagodina, to Slađan’s grave. I stay two or three hours and then go back," says Maćašev, who only returned to the tunnel with his family ten years later. They collected spent shell casings.

Šimšić had a hard time after the war. He crushed stone at Granit until the company collapsed, then spent eight years jobless. He also took on odd jobs around Mačkat.

"Up at six, mucking out stables, milking cows—and when it’s slaughter season, you work until two in the morning. That’s what we Serbian fighters ended up doing," he says as cigarette smoke curls upward.

"We ran into Mikailo outside a shop in Mokra Gora. Wearing worn-out shoes and rags—a Serbian soldier. We bought him a carton of cigarettes," Maćašev remembers, and Šimšić tells us:

"Emir Kusturica remembered me—I worked for him for eight years, then moved on to the hydro plant. It’s been four years now. I never managed to get a disability pension. No one cares about us. That’s what hurts."

No one has asked Božović in 33 years: "How are you living? Do you need work or anything?"

"I never asked for charity—just a job. I started working at 50. I don’t even have 15 years of service needed for a pension. I work, but everything hurts—lasting consequences. I used to be stronger, but now it’s catching up with me. I often think about the tunnel. Just now, when I’ve finally got things sorted, when I can actually live. My sons are grown men, and I have two granddaughters," says Božović, who finally breaks me down:

"But believe me, for a long time I thought, 'It would’ve been better if I’d died. My family would’ve lived better.' Those who died fared better—God forgive me. At least their families had a life, their children got scholarships..."

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