HALO clears the way for Kosovo's future
In brief
HALO is celebrating the conclusion of its humanitarian landmine clearance in Kosovo after 27 years. During this time, communities have rebuilt their homes, schools and businesses, and the economy has grown to $14 billion.
In the summer of 1999, the small Kosovo city of Gjakova was a wreck. In the old town most homes and business had been burned down, and the main mosque and minaret deliberately destroyed during a wave of violence in May of that year.
Today, Gjakova is a thriving city of parks and boulevards. The old town has been rebuilt in wooden, Ottoman, style with a main drag of busy café bars and restaurants.
Agron Boshtraj, who joined The HALO Trust Kosovo team in 1999, says his country was devastated.
"I have just come back from Gaza and the destruction there is very familiar to me. It's what Kosovo looked like when the refugees returned home in 1999."
During the 1998 to 1999 conflict, over 800,000 Kosovar Albanians were displaced by fighting and ethnic cleansing. When they returned they discovered a homeland scarred by destruction, minefields and unexploded cluster bombs.
Tom Dibb, still with HALO, was part of a team that drove from a HALO programme in the Caucasus in Land Rovers equipped with mine protection. He says:
"The NATO road convoy went in on 12 June and the humanitarian convoy followed on 13 June, with the HALO mine clearance at the front. Arriving in Pristina we were pelted with flowers."
The extent of explosive contamination restricted movement, agriculture, and the safe return of communities to begin rebuilding.
Thanks to rapid work by organisations like The HALO Trust and military sappers, most priority danger zones in populated areas were cleared in the first few post-war years.
The NATO humanitarian convoy went in with 'HALO mine clearance' at the front. Arriving in Pristina we were pelted with flowers
Total landmine casualties from 1999 to 2024 were limited to 585 – with fully 75% of those casualties in the chaotic window of 1999 to 2000 before comprehensive risk education, survey and clearance was undertaken.
A country transformed
Today Kosovo is a very different country. The economy has grown to a GDP of over $14 billion, the diaspora in Germany and Switzerland have helped finance the rebuilding of housing, and life expectancy has risen from 58 during the war to 78 now. It has a thriving civil society and institutions that function in a largely conflict-free society.
The transformation over three decades reflects political stabilisation, international investment and long-term development. But none of those would have been possible in a landscape still dangerous and destabilised by widespread explosive contamination.
Atholl Stewart, HALO Kosovo's last programme manager, was with NATO in 2001 and saw the effect of explosives then. He said: "Kosovo shows us that the real impact of removing landmines and cluster bombs is not measured in hectares cleared, but in what that land makes possible over time."
Pristina Airport – which sees almost five million passengers a year - could only be redeveloped once a minefield nearby had been cleared.
The main E851 motorway couldn’t have been built through strategic towns like Orlat, if hundreds of cluster bombs hadn’t been removed from the district.
Tourist trails above the pretty mountain town of Peja – on the border with Albania – had to be cleared of mines and bombs before hundreds of thousands of tourists could start to visit each year.
Arif Neziraj and his wife Mevylde: safe terrain has allowed farmers to mechanise equipment
At the macro level, agriculture, infrastructure and inward investment were all primed by the rapid clearance of landmines from the country. Safe terrain allowed farmers to securely mechanise their operations and rebuild destroyed irrigation systems. This increased domestic food security and reduced the country’s costly reliance on imported food aid, retaining capital inside Kosovo to stimulate GDP.
Millions of dollars in GDP are generated by the Kosovar diaspora in Germany and Switzerland. When refugees returned home to build houses and start businesses, they needed safe, clear ground. Demining provided the safety needed for family networks to confidently invest their money back into real estate, infrastructure, and local businesses.
Mine clearance was not the outcome of Kosovo’s recovery. It was one of the prerequisites that made recovery possible.
After 27 years on the ground in Kosovo, HALO is closing its operations and handing responsibility for any residual contamination back to the national mine action authorities. We leave behind a country transformed by the many thousands of Kosovars who worked for HALO over three decades, helping to make their own country safe and thriving.
Most humanitarian interventions do not end. HALO's do.
Donate to save lives today
Just £15 a month can make a difference
