13/12/2025
The Battle of the Drina will be broadcast on BBC Radio – Archive on 4 on Saturday, 13th December at 20:00 GMT, and will be available afterwards on BBC Sounds.
The Battle of the Drina tells the largely untold story of the siege of Goražde, the only UN “Safe Area” in eastern Bosnia to survive the war. The documentary combines intimate, first-hand accounts from local defenders, doctors, teenagers and civilians with interviews from senior diplomats, UN officials and military leaders who were making decisions that shaped the town’s fate. It is both a human narrative of resilience and a political examination of a moment when NATO unity and UN authority were severely tested.
The story also carries deep personal significance for me. My sister, Major Vanessa Lloyd-Davies, a British Army doctor seconded to the UN, was on the first convoy attempting to bring aid to Goražde. Her vehicle went over a mine and the convoy found itself under fire. They never reached the town and I went to interview Vanessa few days later in Sarajevo, hearing first hand about the desperate situation the town was in. But neither Vanessa or I ever reached the town, and then some years later she died very tragically, committing su***de. Telling the story of Goražde and finishing her journey became something I felt compelled to do. What Ive found is the remarkable and often overlooked sequence of events surrounding the Battle of the Drina. This programme completes a journey that began three decades ago. The documentary also reflects on themes that resonate strongly today: the limits of peace enforcement without genuine political resolution, the fragility of international resolve, and the consequences of peace agreements that freeze rather than solve conflicts. Dayton stopped the fighting, but it did not settle the tensions — something increasingly visible in Bosnia’s current political climate and underscored by the UK’s renewed military presence.
The Battle of the Drina forms part of my wider multi-media and oral-history initiative, UNCONQUERED, a major project currently in production. UNCONQUERED will include a feature documentary film for exhibition and an oral history project with a curated multi-media archive hosted by the prestigious Gladstein Human Rights Institute at the University of Connecticut, home to the world’s largest collection of papers from Nuremberg. Plans are also underway for mobile screenings and educational programmes across the Balkans, delivered in collaboration with the Cultural Centre in Goražde and the Native Museum of Goražde.
Broadcast details: Battle of the Drina
BBC Radio – Archive on 4
Saturday, 13th December, 20:00 GMT
Available afterwards on BBC Sounds
Battle of the Drina is a Studio 9 Films production: written and presented by Fiona Lloyd-Davies; produced by Imogen Serwotka; Executive Producer Fiona Stourton; Associate Producer Nadan Hadzic; Bosnian Producer Meliha Kesmer; Production Manager Natasha Branson; Business Affairs Robin Barty-King; sound design by Peregrine Andrews (Moving Air).
