Welcome to Sarajevo: Natasha's Story

by Michael Nicholson

Published to coincide with the release of the Miramax Film, the heart-breaking true account of how one reporter broke the rules of journalistic detachment & saved a Yugoslavian orphan from approaching Serbs. Michael Nicholson's nightly reports from Bosnia alerted Britain & the world to the horrors of the war in the former Yugoslavia. But when the ITN war correspondent found 200 orphan children living unprotected on the outskirts of Sarajevo, in the path of the approaching Serbs, he could no longer watch & do nothing. Fired by anger & despair, he broke the cardinal rule of journalistic detachment. He forged the name of one of the children on his own passport & smuggled her back to Britain to live with his family. For this 9-year-old girl it was the start of an exciting, sometimes bewildering, new life, a 1000 miles away from the suffering & destruction of her homeland. Now, in this book, Michael Nicholson tells the full story of her ordeal.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, War

220 pages, Paperback

First published September 9, 1994

About the author

Michael Nicholson OBE (born 9 January 1937) is an English journalist and former ITN Senior Foreign Correspondent.
Born in Romford, Essex, Nicholson attended the University of Leicester and is one of the world's most decorated and longest serving British television correspondents. Nicholson joined ITV in 1964 and over the ensuing forty years he reported from 18 war zones: Biafra, Israel, Vietnam, Cambodia, Congo, Cyprus, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, Indo-Pakistan, Northern Ireland, Falklands, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, the Gulf Wars, 'Desert Storm' 1991 and 'Shock and Awe,' Baghdad 2003.
During the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in July 1974, Nicholson's car broke down just as Turkish paratroopers were landing over his head onto the island . Nicholson walked up to the first of them and greeted them with 'I'm Michael Nicholson. Welcome to Cyprus'. His film was flown back to London on an RAF plane and made the Evening News the next day. A world scoop.
Nicholson was ITN’s first bureau chief in South Africa, based in Johannesburg from 1976 to 1981 and the first television correspondent to be allowed to live in apartheid South Africa, a brief covering Africa from Cape Town to the Sahara. During this time Nicholson covered the Soweto riots, spent much time in UDI Rhodesia covering the war of independence and was the first foreign journalist to interview Robert Mugabe on his release from prison.
In 1978 he and his cameraman Tom Phillips and sound recordist Micky Doyle, were in Angola to interview the UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi. Pursued by Cuban mercaneries working for the communist MPLA government, they were trapped and spent for four and a half months in the bush, walking a total of 1,500 miles, trying to escape. They were eventually airlifted out in a dramatic escape.
In 1981 he returned to England, motoring overland through Africa and Europe with his wife Diana and two small sons, Tom and William, a six month journey of some twelve thousand miles, recorded in the book 'Across the Limpopo'.
Nicholson was on holiday in the Lake District when the Falklands War began. Flown by a chartered aircraft to Southampton he boarded the aircraft carrier 'HMS Hermes' for the six week journey to the South Atlantic. At 45 years old, Nicholson was more experienced than all his journalistic colleagues: "But this was the first war, other than Northern Ireland, where I was among my own people. It made it a very special war and the Falklands a very special place." Nicholson and BBC journalist Brian Hanrahan (on his first major foreign story)were regularly flown over to the Royal Fleet auxiliary ships to broadcast their phoned reports, as broadcasting from Royal Navy ships was forbidden. After the conflict, Nicholson was awarded the South Atlantic Medal

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the true, autobiographical account of how an English journalist covering the war in Bosnia stepped out of his passive professional role to save threatened orphans and how one of them, Jelena Natasha Mihalijcic, returned to the UK with him to become a member of his family. The movie, Welcome to Sarajevo, based on this book fairly represents the Bosnian side of the story. This book, originally titled Natasha's Story, goes on to describe, more personally, the English side of it.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. It's about a war correspondent rescuing an orphan girl from Bosnia - what's not to like? And given that it is the only book I've read on the Bosnian war, I appreciate learning something from it. But it is, after all, written by a BBC war correspondent and the writing is just too choppy and disjointed. There isn't enough flow to narrative and not enough history given to create a rich background for the conflict he describes. Still, if you haven't read anything about Bosnia/Serbia, this is a good primer to make you want to learn more.

[Andre Viticc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and detailed account of war in the Balkans, though a bit repetitive. Also some undercurrent of outdated machismo by Nicholson, but not to take away from the story he witnessed and retold.

[Fady Khattab · Rating 5 out of 5]

work as a reporter is amazing and pride job and a very tough and dangerous career
it is a wordless story and movie it is hard to say that a little girl was saved and change its destiny
by running away of war and damage
am proud to translate the movie subtitle in to Arabic and one day may be i could publish it as an Arabic book about Serbian War

[Tariq Mahmood · Rating 4 out of 5]

The children must be saved, only they are innocent, the rest of us are the guilty ones.

Its a pretty moving tale of a young orphan girl rescued by a British war journalist juxtaposed with the Balkan war between Serbs, Croats and the hapless Muslims. Why the Balkans erupted after the end of the communist regime is difficult to understand as it remains unprecedented in contemporary Europe. I mean there were other failed communist states which did not fall to chaos, apart from maybe Chechnya. I got a pretty good idea of the Balkan war in the 1990's but could not understand the hate among the population. There is something seriously wrong with the whole region. The brutality demonstrated by the Christians both Orthodox and Catholics in the Balkans is stupendous, much worst than the Africans. Much more has to written about this war, it's reasons and it's implications.

[Michele · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting to read this 20+ years later, not so much for the story of Natasha and her adoption but more for the historical content related to what happened in Serbia and the parallels to the current worldwide geopolitical situation, in particular the plight of so many refugees at Europe's doorstep. Interesting, too, to read about the behavior of certain journalists in pursuing this journalist's story on his return to England -- a quick check shows that at least one of same actually faced legal troubles for similar conduct some 20 years after this book.

[Suzy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure about this book as it was a strange mix of history and personal story but the two didn't blend well. Interesting to learn something of the Balkan conflict but not sure how I feel about a journalist smuggling a child out of her home country, especially as it all seemed rushed and Ill thought out. I'm glad Natasha has a good life as a result of being rescued but worry this story could encourage others to break the rules in ways that may not always be good for the child.