Heather Bellamy spoke with Mission Without Borders about Ado, who fell victim to an undiscovered mine, and what more they think needs to be done to tackle the problem.

Carly Jones

UK based Christian charity Mission Without Borders are looking to raise awareness of the devastation that landmines are continuing to cause in Bosnia and Herzegovina, despite the conflict ending more than 16 years ago. According to the Bosnia and Herzegovina Mine Action Centre, mines and unexploded bombs have killed or injured more than 8,293 people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, since 1992. Heather Bellamy spoke with Carly Jones, the National Manager for Mission Without Borders, to find out more.

Heather: Who laid all the landmines?

Carly: It was a mix of different parties during the conflict. What was happening when different factions were defending or retreating, was they would lay landmines. The conflict was driven by ethnic divisions, so it would be Serb forces, Croat forces, or Bosnian forces; sometimes it was a combination of all three. That's why there's quite a problem, because there were so many different parties laying landmines across the area.

Heather: Where are these landmines, are they in civilian areas, where people live and work?

Carly: Yes, absolutely! The main places where the landmines were laid, were along the borders where there were strongholds. Different forces were defending, but there were certain areas that were heavily populated by civilians and were subject to landmines being laid.

The Karavadic family

One area where we run a soup kitchen is in Glamoc; although that is a very small region, it was quite strategically interesting. Quite huge sections of that have now been cordoned off and can't be populated anymore, because the risk is so high to human life.

Heather: Who's responsible for removing them? Is it possible to remove them?

Carly: It is, but it's quite difficult to do so. The Government have been running a long-term scheme of removal of the landmines and they have been quite effective in doing so. They have already removed landmines from just under 3,000 square kilometres of land, but the problem is that there's still about 1300 square kilometres where landmines exist and that's roughly about 5% of the territory in Bosnia; so it is still quite a big problem.

There are so many areas where these landmines lie undiscovered, like the case that we've been talking about recently of the 15 year old boy, Ado, who stepped out on his land when he was tending goats and fell victim to an undiscovered mine.

Heather: So were that family completely unaware that there could have been landmines?

Ado and his family on the land near where the mind exploded

Carly: Yes, definitely. They don't live in an area that has been excluded, or cordoned off. They live quite high in the hills, just outside Mostar in Bosnia and they were completely unaware. The landmine had actually been there, lying dormant, for about 20 years, so even before the conflict.

Heather: How is he?

Carly: He's doing very well. We thank God because he is doing so amazingly well and most of the injuries he suffered were to his leg. He was in hospital for a period of time, but he's now out and back with his family.

The thing for him, is he's a young man who's growing up and was working on the land and that experience has caused significant trauma to him. He doesn't really want to go outside and be near the area where it happened. The whole family are quite scared that something like this could happen again.