The Prime Minister of Republika Srpska (RS), Savo Minic, is continuing consultations today on drafting the budget. He will meet with representatives of the Confederation of Trade Unions of the RS, and one of the topics is expected to be improving the position of deminers employed in the RS Civil Protection Administration. Although they risk their lives every day, their earnings are below the lowest guaranteed wage in RS.
The last raise for deminers in RS was three years ago. They say they would have been better off without it. Instead of the promised and agreed 15 percent, the salaries were increased by only one percent, which is about 15 marks per month.
“The union agreed with the Government, with our institution, that salaries would be increased by up to 15 percent. However, the director applied that percentage as one percent. When we asked about it, I spoke to him, I said, “Why only one percent?”, and he replied, ‘That is also up to 15 percent. I didn’t break the law.’ Which, honestly, is true. It’s just that it’s really very little,” says Dragan Vucen from the Union of Workers of the RS Civil Protection Administration.
The director of the RS Civil Protection Administration, Boris Trninic, did not answer our calls, nor those made by the RS Administration Union, whose representatives say they will demand a salary increase for roughly 70 deminers employed in the RS Civil Protection Administration at their meeting with Prime Minister Savo Minic. They will also try to pressure the management of Civil Protection.
“To push the leadership of the RS Civil Protection Administration to recognize the importance and complexity of the work these deminers do. They must adequately value their work. Their salaries must be properly regulated. We also want to speak with the Prime Minister about legally increasing their salaries. Our deminers currently work below the lowest guaranteed wage in RS,” says Bozo Maric, president of the RS Administration Union.
Thirty years after the war, deminers are bitter about society’s attitude toward them, even though every day they put their lives on the line. It seems no one cares about them anymore, and no one needs them.
“After the war, someone appreciated deminers and their work. Now, no one appreciates anything anymore. I don’t need anyone to appreciate me, but it’s like it was something once, and now it’s gone,” says Zeljko Popovic, a deminer.
Deminers are increasingly viewed as some kind of relic of the past. And they should not be, given the numbers. Since the end of the war, 626 people in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) have lost their lives to mines, cluster munitions, or other explosive remnants of war, among them 53 deminers. The most recent incident happened in August, when a nineteen-year-old boy was killed by an anti-personnel mine leftover from the war in the village of Hodzici near Doboj, while trying to retrieve goats that had wandered into a marked minefield.
“More than 820 square kilometers of land, which is about 1.6 percent of the territory of BiH, is still contaminated with mines. It is estimated that around 180.000 mines and unexploded ordnance still remain in BiH. Some 264.000 households live near mine-suspected areas, of which 32.109 households are exposed to direct risk. The total number of people living in endangered communities is 845.163,” according to BHMAC.
Since the war, out of an initial 4.180 square kilometers, about 3.360 square kilometers of land have been cleared of mines. The plan to complete this work entirely by 2027 will clearly not be achieved, because at the current pace, it would take another 50 years. In the meantime, BiH – excluding Ukraine, where war is still ongoing – remains the most mine-contaminated country in Europe and among the top ten in the world.
