Once known as the land which hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics — and historically renowned for its beautiful terrain, clear emerald lakes and diverse multi-ethnic/multi-religious communities — modern-day Bosnia now finds itself in continual economic and environmental ruin.
Bosnia and Herzegovina is a nation where war, economic instability and environmental catastrophe were never a mainstay previously.
Sadly, despite the best efforts of international allies to try and improve the current post-war situation, one of the largest most seemingly insurmountable hurdles blocking Bosnia’s societal, economic and environmental progress appears as though it may never go away: landmines. More than 20 years removed from the Yugoslav Wars, continued action is needed to demine the region.
According to data compiled by the internationally funded and globally recognized Bosnia and Herzegovina Mine Action Centre (BHMAC), throughout the 1990s, amidst the chaos of the Yugoslav Wars, it is estimated that more than 2 million landmines were placed throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina. On top of this, countless other bombs and unexploded ordnances (UXOs) were recklessly scattered about, littering all of the nation’s regional terrain.
Weather is unpredictable, and with climate change continually altering the world’s ecosystems, there’s no telling what natural disasters could do to the landmine geography of the Balkans in the near future.
It is estimated that more than 100,000 people were killed in the Bosnian War of the 1990s, and more than 2.2 million civilians were displaced from this region of the world. As of 2014, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) lists Bosnian refugees as being the fourth largest refugee group in the United States. On top of this, the UNHCR reports 145,278 American refugee arrivals specifically came from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
On a more regional level, the Oregon Department of Human Services has documented roughly 21,770 refugees escaped to Oregon from 1990-2000. Though exact figures on the national origin of these refugees is not publicly provided by the government, it is acknowledged that many of these wartime refugees were indeed escapees of the Yugoslav Wars. The ongoing need to demine Bosnia and Herzegovina hits close to home in the Pacific Northwest, as local estimates place nearly 500 Bosnian families in the Portland and Vancouver metro areas.
In a collective effort to help rid the world of global landmine catastrophes similar to Bosnia’s landmine crisis, back in 1997, the United Nations urgently ruled that anti-personnel landmines were to be prohibited from being used in any form of combat. This was done under The Ottawa Treaty, which acted as a convention to help prohibit the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of anti-personnel landmines all throughout the world. As of today, more than 150 countries have joined this treaty, however, it was already far too late for Bosnia and Herzegovina.
According to the newest direct data provided in 2021 by the BHMAC, 118 out of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s 143 municipalities are still currently impacted by the country’s ongoing landmine crisis. On top of this, roughly 25% (845,163 inhabitants) of the nation’s total population are still actively exposed to the dangers of UXOs. Out of these 845,163 Bosnian civilians currently exposed to the threats of deadly UXOs, nearly 132,803 of these innocent and defenseless civilians are located in high-risk danger zones where they deal with direct threats from UXOs on a near-daily basis.
Yet, despite the ongoing crisis, in these last six years, lack of funding from sources such as the Bosnian national government has led to the BHMAC’s annual demining budget going down from roughly $45 million, all the way to $23 million instead.
On top of this, as recently as 2014, the worst floods in over a century hit Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to the BHMAC, this rearranged many of the well-documented GPS coordinates for critical landmine positions all throughout the entire country. Suddenly, entirely new budgets were needed since entirely new obstacles were now facing both the general public and the local deminers. Alongside these recent flooding issues plaguing Bosnia, earthquakes have also been occurring all throughout the Balkans these last few years. They have most notably been hitting Bosnia’s earthquake-prone neighbor Croatia, which has been known to have many regions that are positioned on tectonically active geographic fault lines.
Weather is unpredictable, and with climate change continually altering the world’s ecosystems, there’s no telling what natural disasters could do to the landmine geography of the Balkans in the near future. Since governments are deprioritizing and prolonging the demining process in this region of the world, civilians in Bosnia (and the Balkans at large), are all being made vulnerable for yet another potentially massive environmental catastrophe which could easily result in the relocating of thousands of well-documented GPS coordinates for deadly UXOs. Due to this, nations like Bosnia and Herzegovina are not only in a race for more funding, they are also in a race against their own shifting environmental landscape.
Naturally, this level of environmental uncertainty has drastically impacted tourism in Bosnia as well. Famously, back in 2016, local non-governmental organizations actually went out of their way to warn Pokémon GO players to be very cautious when traveling around Bosnia due to the abundance of active landmines throughout the country. On top of this, aside from severely damaging the nation’s tourism industry, the landmine legacy has also caused an unprecedented level of national economic stagnation as well. This is largely due to the fact that for decades now, previously available emergency sources of income (farming, crop cultivation, etc.) have been heavily stifled by the presence of these landmines which have polluted many farming fields throughout the country.
Bosnia’s limited ability to produce food using its native land has been especially hard on the local economy, since the nation itself has historically been a largely agrarian-based society that has often used farming and crop cultivation in order to supplant the need for industrial employment.
In 2021, this high level of economic and environmental instability was widely recognized by an analytical branch of the Bosnian government called the Agency for statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BHAS). In their research, they reported that for the last decade, Bosnia has averaged an incredibly high national unemployment rate of over 40% (with 2013 highlighting a ridiculously high 46.10% national unemployment rate total). During this time period, Bosnia has widely been regarded as one of the 10 poorest nations in all of Europe as well.
Furthermore, according to Bosnia’s own governmental statistics from the BHAS and data compiled by global organizations such as the World Bank, it has been cited that on numerous occasions throughout this last decade, Bosnia and Herzegovina has also held the record for having the highest youth unemployment rate in the entire world. As recently as 2016 in particular, Bosnia was routinely holding an unprecedentedly high 63% youth unemployment rate figure, which was unheard of, even when placed in a global context.
In hindsight, this tragic youth unemployment crisis encapsulates the dangerous multigenerational ramifications brought on by Bosnia’s continual mismanagement of its own post-war reconstruction period. In turn, landmines have also caused a revolving door of catastrophe for the nation as a whole. However, it would be naïve to think that a majority of Bosnia’s well-documented national shortcomings were solely a byproduct of the death, environmental ruin and economic instability brought on by either the Yugoslav Wars or the ongoing landmine/UXO crisis.
Massive ethnic rifts, post-war religious tension and a heavily corrupted government bureaucracy have all arguably played much larger roles in directly leading to a lot of Bosnia’s current unstable and disastrous situation. However, none of this nullifies the fact that contemporary demining activities going on throughout Bosnia have already caused innumerable amounts of tangible change, both on a social and economic level. This is why many foreign and domestic observers analyzing the situation for years now have all agreed successful demining campaigns are vital for potentially jumpstarting the country.
Yet, despite this general consensus, funding for important demining projects continues to wane. The BHMAC estimates that they will need roughly $196.8 million in order to help swiftly complete their entire demining strategy for the country.
However, with lack of funding being a huge problem moving forward, and with there being added pressure to clear out the landmines before another natural disaster strikes again, it’s become apparently clear that for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s landmine crisis, time is surely of the essence.
For anybody interested in helping out this downtrodden community of war refugee diaspora from the Balkans, donations to groups like the Jusuf Nurkic Foundation have proven to be a highly effective way of directly impacting the lives of struggling Bosnians. From providing 12,000 starving civilians with direly needed food items to supplying life-saving PPE kits and mammogram machines for struggling hospitals throughout Bosnia, time and time again the Portland Trail Blazers star’s foundation has proven to be a watershed human rights organization for millions of people in need.
In time, as the continual landmine crisis plaguing Bosnia (and the Balkans at large) continues to be discussed, the uptick in enthusiasm for funding efforts to demine the Balkans will likely grow as well.
Arian Berberović is a local journalist and news correspondent for XRAY.fm and an advocacy director for the nongovernmental organization Zemlja-Voda-Zrak. His family escaped to Portland as war refugees during the height of the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s.