On 16 April, three people were injured in an explosion of a device left over from the 1992-1995 war in the northern Bosnian municipality of Samac, the local police reported on 17 April, adding that the wounds were not life-threatening, Hina reported. Two young men and a girl sustained injuries to their chests and extremities while working on a farmland which is 200 metres away from an area marked as a mine-infested zone.
A police investigation is under way, and it is assumed that the mine was activated while the three were burning weeds which activated the device.
Since the war ended in 1996, land-mines have claimed over 1,700 casualties, including 237 children. The number of deaths caused by mine blasts is put at 579.As many as 114 mine removal specialists have been injured, and 46 killed while removing explosive devices left over from the war.Bosnia is one of the worst mine-infested countries in the world, and it needs tens of millions of euro to rid the land of mines and other explosive devices.
Military warehouses in Bosnia and Herzegovina currently have more than 17,000 tonnes of ammunition and explosives stored and present a potential hazard to safety and that problem has to be resolved as soon as possible, the commander of EUFOR in BiH, General Dieter Heidecker, has said.
The average age of ammunition in the warehouses is around 60 years which is prone to chemical processes and these warehouses become unstable and pose a threat. This matter has to be solved, General Heidecker said in the edition of the Sarajevo daily Dnevni Avaz on 16 April. The Austrian general underscored that this was primarily the responsibility of the Bosnian defence ministry while EUFOR is available to offer technical support.
EUFOR’s commander assessed that it may not be necessary to destroy the entire arsenal as some of it may be sold or given away.
It is up to the Bosnian defence ministry to decide what to do with the surplus. It is necessary, however, to monitor the situation with this ammunition in the coming period and to know what is to become of it, said Heidecker, who is to command a military exercise over the next two weeks in BiH involving EUFOR reserve troops available in case of an emergency situation arising in that country.
He added that the current status of EUFOR would remain unchanged and around 600 troops will remain stationed in Bosnia.
The European Union in 2004 set up the Althea military mission in Bosnia to replace the NATO forces. Immediately after the war ended in Bosnia in 1995 there were around 60,000 troops stationed in the country to secure the peace and the implementation of the Dayton Peace Accord.
