A landmine warning sign in Croatia – credit, Modzzak, CC BY-SA 3.0
In an incredible, bittersweet success story, Croatia has announced it has freed itself from the scourge of landmines, 31 years after the country’s civil war.
During the breakup of Yugoslavia, 1.5 million landmines were estimated to have been used by all sides of the conflict, spread across an area of 453 square miles, twice the size of Zion National Park in Utah.
Suspected locations of minefields in Croatia marked in red.
Originally, some 5,000 square miles was believed to be contaminated by mines, but for obvious safety reasons it was difficult to get more accurate estimates.
Now, with more than one billion euros spent, the country has eliminated all known minefields using a combination of metal detectors, heavy machinery, and detection dogs.
“Croatia is free of land mines. After nearly 30 years, we have completed demining in accordance with the Ottawa Convention,” Interior Minister Davor Božinović said during an event in Zagreb, referencing the UN convention on the banning of anti-personnel mines, to which Croatia is a party to.
“Almost 107,000 mines and 407,000 pieces of unexploded ordnance have been removed. This is not just a technical success—it is the fulfillment of a moral obligation to the victims of mines and their families. A mine-free Croatia means safer families, better development of rural areas, more farmland, and stronger tourism.”
It’s difficult to ascertain an exact number, but likely tens of thousands of square miles of ground worldwide still contain minefields or areas contaminated by bombs and shells which failed to explode when they were first used.
DEMINING IN THE NEWS:
Recently, Mozambique was declared mine-free in 2015, after clearing nearly 171,000 mines over 20 years.
Landmines and unexploded ordnance are significant impediments to rural development. Often appearing as shiny curiosities half-buried in the grass, children are at especially high risk of death and maiming from these weapons. Demining charities like HALO often pair their mine-clearance work with awareness raising and educational campaigns in school to help children to learn how to identify and stay away from mines and unexploded bombs.
The triumph in Croatia required hundreds of millions of euros in donations from other countries, and tragically claimed the lives of between 40 and 60 demining personnel who worked to make their country a safe place for generations to come.
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