The massive cement building which had been built to comply with war-time standards of construction suffered frequent shelling. It was one of the first buildings shelled by a modified aerial bomb, an invention of the Serbian commander accused of war crimes by the Hague court in 1996. On that occasion the building underwent the heaviest damage. Even that did not stop the broadcasting. The reports from Sarajevo by foreign television crews were all made in the building.
FAMA Collection Visual Archives
“Thanks to the readiness of the people who worked there and their courage and bravery, some facilities continued to transmit the program of BH, that is Sarajevo Radio Television, even after they were taken. At that time those people courageously defended some of the facilities, and were taken prisoner and some were even killed.”
- Dragan Miovčić, Engineer, TVBiH
‘Well, one of the jobs of the editor was, really, if we bought a litre of fuel to take it out of the tanks of our cars or cans and donate it to BH TV Television, so that it could work. We began at about twenty to eight and then, during the Prime news, we had, five or six, I broke the record once, with as many as eight interruptions, because there was no electricity, or no oil. Water would come, bring some mud, and everything would stop working. But we continued the news.”
- Senad Hadžifejzović, Journalist
“We wanted people outside Sarajevo, outside that diabolical siege, in Zenica, Tuzla and other towns of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who could watch our program, to see that Sarajevo was holding on, that we were making a television program all the same, and a children’s program, too.”
- Maja Anzulović, Journalist at TVBiH
Video Oral History: The Siege of Sarajevo 1992-96 (© FAMA Collection, 1997-99.)