Bosnia Mine Clearance Could Take Until 2045

More than three decades after the war ended, Bosnia and Herzegovina still has around 756 square kilometers of mine suspected territory, and the number of people trained for mine action has nearly halved compared with the period before the coronavirus pandemic. According to the Bosnia and Herzegovina Mine Action Centre (BHMAC), around 774 square kilometers were still mined at the start of the year, and only about 18 square kilometers have been cleared so far. A new draft law on mine action would, for the first time, systematically tie stable domestic financing for clearance to the working, social and pension status of deminers, but the bill is still moving through the approval process with no firm date for adoption.

The numbers show just how wide the gap is between the planned pace of clearance and what is actually possible. The plan for 2027 to 2032 envisions returning around 55 square kilometers a year to safe use, while BHMAC estimates that with stable financing, annual capacity could rise to 75 or 80 square kilometers. Reaching a target of 75 square kilometers a year would require about 61 million convertible marks. Bosnia’s current demining organizations clear roughly 50 to 55 square kilometers a year, and a meaningful increase in capacity would take at least one to two years, time needed to bring in more deminers and buy equipment. In the best case scenario, if the law passes, BHMAC estimates Bosnia could finish the job by the end of 2036. If the law is not adopted and donor funding keeps drying up, the process could stretch all the way to 2045.

The key change in the draft law is a requirement that Bosnia and Herzegovina’s state institutions, its two entities and the Brcko District each set aside at least 0.2 percent of their budgets for mine action. According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, based on the 2026 budget, that legal minimum would cover about 60 percent of the funding needed to hit the 75 square kilometer annual target, leaving the rest to come from other domestic sources and international aid. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Ministry of Finance and Treasury calculated that 0.2 percent of the state institutions’ 2026 budget alone would amount to 3.161 million convertible marks. The state level has already started raising its own contribution: the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina approved a multi year co-financing project for demining worth two million convertible marks for 2025 to 2027, split into 650,000 in each of the first two years and 700,000 in 2027.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs warns that the law alone will not solve the problem unless the way the work is done also changes. “The law itself will not clear the mines from Bosnia and Herzegovina,” the ministry said, adding that stable funding, enough trained people, technical capacity, coordination and accountability for results all have to stand behind the legislation.

The drop in international aid is complicating the math further. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Bosnia and Herzegovina has confirmed that donor support has fallen sharply in recent years, a trend also reflected in the withdrawal of organizations that had worked in mine action for years, including Norwegian People’s Aid and the Mines Advisory Group. BHMAC points to the war in Ukraine as one reason, since part of the international funding once available has been redirected there. Bosnia currently draws on IPA III funds from the European Union and World Bank money to clear the right bank of the Sava River, but BHMAC warns that once those projects wrap up, it does not expect direct EU and World Bank grants at the same scale going forward.

“It is hard to imagine a successful and sustainable end to this process without solid, stable operational capacity. People are the key resource in demining, which is why their status, safety, professional development and long term prospects are among the basic conditions for carrying out the process properly and continuously,” UNDP said.

Behind the numbers are people who have done this work for decades. Bosnia currently has around 1,100 members of demining staff, down from more than 2,000 before the pandemic. The Federal Civil Protection Administration’s demining department has 124 employees in total, including 59 deminers, eight team leaders and nine medics, while in Republika Srpska 70 people currently do this work, most of them over 40. BHMAC also warns that the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s demining battalion is short about 60 people, the equivalent of eight to ten teams.

“This clearly points to a natural generational shift and confirms that attracting young people to this high risk profession is a real challenge for the future,” the Republika Srpska Civil Protection Administration said, adding that better working conditions would help turn that trend around.

Amir Mehanovic, a deminer from Tuzla who has worked in the field since 1997, says the conditions a deminer has to meet already place the job among the riskiest professions there are, with mandatory health and psychological checks and extra insurance in case of injury or death. The problem, he says, comes when that risk has to be translated into labor and pension rights, since benefits used to apply only to the formal deminer position, even though team leaders, dog handlers and other field staff face the same risk. In the first years after the war, part of the sector even worked without registered service time. Speaking about his own experience, Mehanovic put it plainly: “By every standard, I should not have been allowed to work in demining for this long, psychologically.”

The draft law has gone through e-consultations, and the Ministry of Civil Affairs has already collected opinions from the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Security, the Ministry of Justice, the Directorate for European Integration, the Demining Commission, the Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Government of the Brcko District, along with a conclusion from the Government of Republika Srpska. The governments of the Federation and the Brcko District raised no objections to the proposed minimum of 0.2 percent of the budget. The Legislation Office and the Ministry of Finance and Treasury have yet to weigh in, after which the draft should go to the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Republika Srpska Civil Protection Administration says the text is still being harmonized and that it is too early to talk about final solutions, so there is still no set date for when the law will reach lawmakers.