Introduction
Bosnia's landmines are reaping a grim harvest on the former front-lines of the conflict. Britain's Diana, Princess of Wales recently visited Bosnia in support of landmine victims. It was part of the campaign for a total ban on landmines. The International Committee of the Red Cross is running a mine awareness programme in Bosnia - teaching people how to live safely with the threat of mines.
Start: 10.00.00.00
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Images: Barbed wire border Serb/Muslim Sarajevo/ three boys with football walking up to wire. One has no lower arms.
00:03
Commentary
The dividing line between Serb and Muslim Sarajevo in Bosnia Herzegovina. A devastated, mined, urban landscape.
Images: Shots through the wire to Muslim Sarajevo streets, almost empty except a few children
00:12
Commentary
The ethnic rift is just starting to heal along this former front line as boys like Tihomir Ostojic call out across the barbed wire to their Muslim friends on the other side of the barrier to come and play.
Images: Muslim boys playing football and dancing in the street on opposite side of the wire.
-gv's of Dobrinja, bombed out houses, semi-destroyed but inhabited apartment buildings, children playing in small concrete playground surrounded by bombed out buildings and mined grass areas.
00:36
Commentary
Dobrinja, near Sarajevo airport, was a bitterly contested area during the war. And like most front lines it is heavily contaminated by mines -in houses and fields - threatening daily survival.
Images: People planting crops on mined hillside, trees and destroyed stables. Tihomir walks up street recounting his mine accident.
00:51
Commentary
The residents of Dobrinja are literally living in a minefield as 15 year-old Tihomir found out when he stepped on one mine and was thrown by the blast onto another mine - suffering traumatic injuries.
01.03
STATEMENT TIHOMIR OSTOJIC, mine victim (serbo-croat)
We were coming back from swimming and went towards the cherry trees over there where I was wounded. I lost both hands and two toes from my right foot and broke my leg. We wanted to pick up cherries but I didn't know there were any mines up there.
Images: People planting crops/children playing in fields surrounded by Mine signs.
01:41
Commentary
These people know the land is mined but need to plant crops to survive. They somehow believe a landmine accident can't happen to them.
Images: Pecikoza family grieving after loss of son.
01:55
Commentary
But scenes of grief like this, are all too common on the heavily mined former front lines. The Pecikoza's 13 year old son Elvis was killed by a landmine blast 12 hours earlier. His father says Elvis went with some friends to a warehouse to find scrap aluminium to sell to buy an ice-cream. Inside the warehouse he triggered one mine and was thrown by the blast onto another and killed.
All too aware of the mine problem his father had collected 70 mines around the house the refugee family had moved into. But even that wasn't enough to protect his son.
The danger still lies in wait for his other children.
Images: Tihomir and friends arriving at football pitch/view on football pitch and game through destroyed cars/Tihomir playing football without arms, close-up fragmentation wounds on face /boys leaning on each other talking.
02:40
Commentary
In comparison Tihomir's been fortunate although his life is by no means easy. His friends have stuck by him. And, his injuries have made them more aware of the danger of mines. So has a unique International Committee of the Red Cross mine awareness programme in communities and schools aimed at preventing mine accidents happening to people at risk like these boys.
03:07
Interview boys on football pitch. MIKI(serbo-croat)
We think it's dangerous to play around risky places. In the beginning we played there and we didn't think this would happen. As soon as the accident happened we stopped.
Images: Tihomir comes home kicking football/greeted by father/interiors/ father feeds him eggs.
03:32
Commentary
Home life is also a battle zone for Tihomir. His unemployed father and main carer is divorced but living with his wife for financial reasons. He tries to be both mother and father to his son.
03:47 -off
03:52 - on
Interview Dragan Ostojic (serbo-croat)
I feed him, I dress him, I bathe him. As you see I do everything to support him. I don't work, but I manage somehow to keep his spirits up and give him back his happy childhood.
Images: School programme, Sarajevo, children taking part in mine-awareness programme, answering questions, drawing maps, childrens drawings of mine accidents.
04:09
Commentary
In an effort to stop the human carnage the ICRC has launched a mine awareness programme in Bosnia's schools and communities at high risk. Children are taught about the mine threat, how to identify them and what to do if they find one. They draw maps of mines in their areas. Being aware of the dangers can help save their lives and limbs. They don't have much option.
04:37
These pictures from the campaigns nation-wide drawing competition tell the story. The ICRC says twenty percent of mine victims in Bosnia are children. Men doing agricultural work, in the cities or countryside, form the majority of post-war mine victims. Forty percent of victims suffer amputations and 20 percent die from their injuries.
Images: ICRC landcruiser drives down streets of Bijeljina turns into ICRC delegation/arrivals/ office/children's paintings of mines, discussion mine data.
05:02
Commentary
The mine awareness programme is active in the worst mine contaminated areas. Data about mine incidents is collected and the most vulnerable people taught how to live safely with the ever-present threat of mines.
05:16
Up in the northern city of Bijeljina (pronounced Bee-yell-eena), the ICRC Mine Awareness officer is arriving on a data gathering trip and to check on the latest victim information and how effectively the programme's been targeted.
05:31
Interview Laurence Desvignes, ICRC Mine Awareness Programme (English)
The main thing is to try to decrease the number of accidents and make people more aware, but also to make them more aware to deal themselves with the mine problem to initiate activities in their communities...
05:45
Commentary
This area was right on the front-line. People are now returning to rebuild their lives - but mines are scattered in the fields and along paths they use daily.
Dragan Djokic is one of 94 Red Cross community based mine awareness instructors. He's lived here since he was a boy. And he's also a mine victim. That helps as he coaxes people from their work to explain the mine threat.
Images: Rural hill country, house reconstruction/ mine awareness instructor gathers people in fields/impromptu mine seminar in villagers garden underneath tree/display mine posters/discussion with group
06:11
This is what he has to deal with. Preventing locals from doing their own demining and becoming potential mine fatalities.
Images: Deminers clearing mines/destroyed buildings/ grenades in rubble/cultivation in mined areas/UN Mine Action Centre, Sarajevo
06:25
Commentary
Demining is the only lasting solution to Bosnia's mine problem. But it's sporadic and painstakingly slow. It takes 200 deminers a year to demine 10 square kilometres ...and, according to the United Nations there are 2-3 million mines in the country.
06.48
The United Nations Mine Action Centre in Sarajevo gathers together all the information on mines in Bosnia from various sources. They produce maps which show the enormity of the problem.
In off -07:00
On - 07:06
Interview George Focsaneanu, program manager, UN Mine Action Centre, Sarajevo (English)
It's a major crisis because land mines tend to stop all activities in the country. So the issue of land mines will become and has become a crisis which if not addressed will continue to paralyse this country for many years to come.
Images: Shelled and mined buildings. Boys walking through underground parking area with burnt out cars etc., down to the barbed wire barrier.
07:18
That paralysis affects everyday life. Houses in front-line areas are often mined, preventing refugees or owners taking up residence.
The minefields of the former confrontation lines are now the brutal fields and playgrounds of innocent civilians.
Mine awareness programmes can reduce the risk. But it will take years for Bosnia's mines to be cleared. In the meantime, front-line boys like Tihomir will continue to be maimed for life or killed. An unacceptable fact caused by these inhumane weapons
07:58 ends