Over the last 20 years Croatia has spent nearly 5.5 billion kuna (€745 million) on mine clearance, with 595 people suffering injuries from exploded landmines since the end of the 1991-95 war, including 203 killed, the Interior Ministry said on Friday.

At the start of 2017, some 447 square kilometres of land spread across nine Croatian counties was still contaminated with unexploded ordnance left over from the 1991-95 war, said Interior Ministry senior official Zarko Katic while presenting to Parliament a report on the mine clearance plan in 2017. It was the first year since the war ended in which no mine-related casualties had been reported.

According to the report, the plan for last year was not carried out completely, as only 36.5 out of the planned 58.3 square kilometres were cleared, and of the 505 million kuna allocated for mine removal operations only 347 million kuna was spent. Katic said that delays and the changed method of calculation of the land cleared were some of the reasons for the incomplete plan.

Some 405 square kilometres of land still remains to be cleared according to the plan, and since it will not be feasible to complete this task by the previously set target date March 1, 2019, the government proposed extending the deadline by seven years, to March 1, 2026.

MPs of opposition parties criticised the slow pace and low efficiency of the mine clearance process.

“Every year, more and more money is spent, less and less land is cleared, and fewer and fewer mines get detected, last year there were only 1,300,” Branimir Bunjac of the populist Zivi Zid party said.

Bunjac added that some African countries were far more efficient in mine clearing than Croatia, even though they are poorer than Croatia. He said that it had taken Mozambique 20 years to clear the land of mines left over after its 1977-92 civil war, adding that if Croatia continued to clear its landmines at the present rate it would take it 150 years to complete the job.

MP Ranko Ostojic of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) said that it would take 13 years for Croatia to become free of unexploded mines, provided that it receives EU funding for this purpose. Otherwise the process might last who knows how many years, he added.

Vesna Pusic of the Civic Liberal Alliance (Glas) noted that it was difficult to maintain the quality of mine clearing services, given that 40 different companies had been engaged in de-mining operations last year.

(€1 = 7.38 kuna)

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