Removing mines to make families safe in Kosovo

As Bajram enjoys the spring in the village of Arllat, where he was born and raised, fruit trees are budding, and daffodil bulbs are blooming in his family's garden. Bajram explains that his family's home and garden are only shadows of their former glory as they were painstakingly rebuilt after their land was burnt to ashes in 1999. Arllat was caught in the crossfire during the fighting in 1999, forcing Bajram and his family to flee to a village in the mountains for safety, where they remained for a year until the Kosovo ended the war.

One of Bajram's sons returned home before the rest of his family to assess the damage of the village. While attempting to clear access to the family's land, he detonated an old cluster bomb that had not exploded on impact and received fragmentation injuries to his chest and face. Thankfully, Bajram's son made a full recovery, but he still has visible scars. 

After the accident, Bajram and his family was afraid to return home to Arllat, but felt they had no choice, so they cautiously returned home. As an agricultural community, Arllat villagers work the land to make a living. However, after the war, it became common to dig up cluster munitions in the soft soil. Bajram even saw children picking up the dangerous items and arranging them in a line against a wall. When HALO arrived in the area into conduct surface clearance, Bajram was relieved. The villagers could now refer explosive ordnance to experts instead of risking their lives trying to move items themselves. In September 2022, HALO returned to Arllat to clear the cluster munition remnants still around parts of the village.

Bajram is grateful to everyone supporting HALO’s work and made it possible for deminers to clear his home and garden so that he no longer must be cautious on his own land. Bajram and his wife said, "we built our new house big hoping for lots of grandchildren."