The official Twitter profile of the United States Embassy in Sarajevo announced that Sarajevo is mine-free. They also thanked all participants in the US-funded Sarajevo Without Mines project, which includes the Bosnia and Herzegovina Mine Detection Dog Training Center (MDDC), the ITF Enhancing Human Security Institute, Marshall Legacy “and the BiH Mine Action Center.
They removed 279 dangerous items. This project was launched in April 2019, and its goal is to completely eliminate the impact of landmines and other explosive and lethal means in Sarajevo, and includes the municipalities surrounding Sarajevo.
Earlier, Deputy Minister of Civil Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina Sinisa Ilic participated on behalf of Minister Ankica Gudeljevic in the opening of the online conference on demining challenges in BiH, which was organized at the initiative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Addressing the participants, Ilic reminded that the Ministry of Civil Affairs, which is in charge of demining, with the help of donors and domestic sources of funding, has done a great job in removing mines, cluster munitions and other explosive remnants, as well as developing capacity and technology to implement operational activities.
”Unfortunately, despite the efforts made, BiH is still at the very top in terms of the number of remaining mines and unexploded ordnance in Europe. Mine suspected areas are 965.26 square kilometers, or 1.88 percent of the total territory of the country,” Ilic reminded.
At the same time, he stressed that the number of victims has fallen in recent years, while there has been no civilian casualties this year, “which is certainly the result of risk reduction through demining and marking operations, as well as numerous mine risk education activities.”
The Deputy Minister also reminded that a commission for demining was formed in BiH, which was a condition for serious and dedicated institutional work for this field of activity.
He announced that the Ministry, based on the results of the project “General assessment of mine suspected areas in Bosnia and Herzegovina 2018-2019” by the end of 2020 will send a request to the Council of Ministers of BiH to initiate a revision of the Strategy 2018-2025 to be consistent with the new mine situation, it was stated from MCPBiH.
