There are still 860 square kilometers of suspected dangerous area left in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the authorities hope that the area of Bosnia and Herzegovina will be demined by 2030, said the director of the Center for the Removal of Mines in BiH /BHMAK/ Saša Obradović on the occasion of April 4th – the International Day of Raising Awareness of the Dangers of Mines and Providing Assistance in Mine Action.
BHMAK, in cooperation with the Demining Commission, marked April 4 – the International Day of Raising Awareness of the Dangers of Mines and Providing Assistance in Mine Action – with a display of equipment and techniques for removing mines in Vojkovići.
According to Obradović, according to the Mine Action Strategy, the demining of the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina should be completed by 2027, but due to the lack of financial resources and the abandonment of foreign donors who turn to the areas of Ukraine, that period was extended by three years.
“Bosnia and Herzegovina will have to face this problem on its own, and we appeal to strengthen human capacities in the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, civil protection of the Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and of course BHMAK, so that we can use our domestic capacities to clean up the country from mines,” Obradović told reporters in East Ilidža.
Obradović reminded that from the end of the war until today, 54 deminers were killed, and more than 150 of them were injured, and this day is dedicated to them.
Radovan Ilić, commander of the operational command of the Armed Forces /OS/ of Bosnia and Herzegovina, emphasized that the demining mission is directly related to the operational command, which has a demining battalion in its composition as part of tactical support, which, since the organization for the implementation of annual plans, has demined more of 51 million square meters, and removed around 21,000 different lethal means.
He recalled that in 2019, the demining battalion realized about 109 percent of the annual demining plan, but that then a process of stagnation arose, and that it is now at 75 to 80 percent of the realization on an annual level.
“There are two main reasons why this is so, one is the state of personnel, and the other is the state of logistics within the demining battalion, and I urge you to make the maximum effort to equip this unit both in terms of personnel and material and technical means so that it can assume the role of leader in the demining process,” Ilic stated.
The size of the suspected dangerous mine area in Bosnia and Herzegovina is 859.35 square kilometers, and the most threatened municipalities are Doboj, Teslić, Maglaj, Usora, Zavidovići, Gornji Vakuf, Sanski Most, Velika Kladuša, Travnik, Ilijaš and Konjic.
In the post-war period, 1,780 people suffered from residual mines, of which 623 died.
So far, 80,000 mines and 65,000 explosive devices left over from the war have been found.
On December 8, 2005, the UN General Assembly announced that April 4 will be marked as International Mine Action Day every year.
April 4 was first observed in 2006 as a reminder to the global community that mines, munitions and unexploded ordnance continue to injure and kill thousands of people around the world, including children.
