The last mine was removed in a mountainous county in western Croatia.
It was, in many ways, an unremarkable moment — a piece of metal extracted from the ground by trained deminers working methodically through a patch of land. But it marked the end of something that had been going on for **thirty-one years**: the painstaking, dangerous, enormously expensive work of making Croatia safe again after the war that tore Yugoslavia apart.
Croatia has officially declared itself **free of landmines**.
**The Scale of the Problem**
When Croatia's Homeland War ended in 1995, the country was left with a legacy hidden in its own soil. Somewhere beneath forests, farmland, meadows, and mountain regions, **around 13,000 square kilometres** of Croatian territory were suspected of being contaminated with mines and unexploded ordnance — stretching along former front lines that had cut through communities, fields, and wilderness.
People knew which forests not to walk into. Which fields not to farm. Which paths not to take. The war had ended but the land remained dangerous, and would remain so for as long as those devices lay buried.
The human cost was real. Over the three decades of demining work, **208 people were killed** — including 41 professional deminers who died doing the work of making the country safe for everyone else.
**The Numbers of the Clearance**
- 🪖 **410,000 mines and explosive remnants** removed in total - 💣 **107,000 anti-personnel and anti-tank mines** specifically located and destroyed - 📍 **13,000 km²** of contaminated territory cleared - 💶 **€1.2 billion** — the total cost of the demining programme - ⏱️ **31 years** from the end of the war to the final clearance
The work was done with metal detectors, mechanical demining equipment, and **specially trained detection dogs** — animals whose sensitivity to explosive scent made them irreplaceable partners in the clearance effort.
**What It Means**
Interior Minister Davor Božinović, announcing the achievement in Zagreb, was clear that this was not merely a technical milestone.
'This is not simply a technical success,' he said. 'It is the fulfilment of a moral obligation — to the victims of mines, and to their families.'
For the communities most affected, the meaning is tangible. Land that could not be farmed can now be farmed. Forest paths that could not be walked can now be walked. Rural areas that were left behind by post-war development, in part because of the safety concerns, can now be properly developed. Tourism can reach corners of the country that were effectively closed.
Croatia has also fulfilled its obligations under the **Ottawa Convention** — the landmark international treaty banning anti-personnel landmines — a legal and moral commitment it has now honoured completely.
**Sharing the Knowledge**
The story doesn't stop at Croatia's borders. Having spent three decades developing some of the world's most refined demining expertise — in technology, dog training, methodology, and community engagement — Croatia is now committed to sharing that knowledge with other countries still facing the same challenge.
Around the world, **roughly 60 countries** still have land contaminated by mines and explosive remnants of conflict. The total number of landmine victims globally still runs into the thousands per year. Croatia's experience — what worked, what didn't, how to coordinate national programmes over decades — is exactly the kind of hard-won knowledge that could accelerate clearance efforts elsewhere.
**Why It Matters**
Landmines are, in a sense, the most patient weapons ever made. They do not know the war is over. They wait, indifferently, for whoever steps on them next — a farmer, a child, a hiker, a deminer.
Making them safe requires something the weapons themselves lack entirely: patience, care, and sustained human commitment over years and decades.
Croatia has demonstrated all three. It took thirty-one years, €1.2 billion, and the lives of 41 deminers. But on the day the last mine came out of the ground in Lika-Senj County, every square kilometre of Croatian land became safe for the first time since 1991.
That is worth marking. 🕊️
*Sources: Croatian Mine Action Centre · Interior Ministry of Croatia · Ottawa Convention · TVP World · Croatia Week · Good News Network · HRT English*