Croatia's demining experts hope to clear country of landmines by 2026

GOSPIC, Croatia (Reuters) - The deminers walk painstakingly across a field near the town of Gospic in southern Croatia, using metal detectors to find landmines left during the war waged there over three decades ago.

They are part of an operation that is planned to come to an end in less than a year, when the country hopes to declare it is free from landmines.

Millions of landmines were planted in Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Serbia during the bloody collapse of former Yugoslavia and the wars of the 1990s.

Davor Laura, the head of operations at the Croatian Interior Ministry's Mine Action Centre, said so far 1,807 square kilometres (698 square miles) had been cleared and that nearly 300,000 landmines and other explosive devices had been found.

While that is only a fraction of the total area of the country, the mines were mainly laid in the narrow strips of the frontline fighting. At the end of 2024, the remaining area being combed for suspected landmines was 49.3 square km.

"At the end of this year, we will complete all operations and on March 1, 2026, (we will) declare Croatia free of mine danger," Laura said.

Thousands of people from across the region have died from detonations of mines in largely unmapped minefields and from the unexploded ordnance that still litters some former battlefields.

Since the end of the war in Croatia in 1995, 207 civilians and 40 deminers have died from landmines and unexploded ordnance, Laura said.

For some of the operations in the past, the Croatian experts have been cooperating with its former wartime foe Serbia, often using military minefield maps, where they existed.

The demining operation in Croatia, which includes former military sappers and others with similar expertise, has also sent help to Ukraine to help clear land there after Russia's invasion in 2022.

For those who lived in places that were on the frontlines of the war in Croatia, the country being declared safe from the danger of landmines cannot come soon enough.

Emir Sefic, 40, from the town of Dvor, about 150 km east of the Gospic area, was a child when he survived an explosion from a detonator, without harm.

"(It was) like some kind of pen wound on a wire ... It was a huge explosion," he said.

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(Reporting by Antonio Bronic; Writing by Aleksandar Vasovic; Editing by Alison Williams)