Kosovo

Casualties

Last updated: 26 June 2018

Casualties[1]

All known casualties (between 1999 and 2017)

580 mine/unexploded remnants of war (ERW) casualties: 117 killed and 463 injured

Casualties in 2017

Annual total

4

Increase from 1 in 2016

Survival outcome

4 injured

Device type causing casualties

2 antipersonnel mine; 2 ERW

Civilian status

4 civilian

Age and gender

0 adults

4 children: 3 boys; 1 girl

 

Casualties in 2017—details 
 
The Kosovo Mine Action Center reported a total of four mine/ERW casualties.[2] In one incident, two boys were injured by the detonation of a rifle grenade.[3] HALO Trust provided additional details on the other incident which resulted in two children, one boy and one girl, being injured by an antipersonnel mine.[4]

 

Cluster munition casualties 

At least 205 cluster munition casualties have been recorded in Kosovo. Between 1999 and the end of 2014, 180 casualties from incidents involving unexploded submunitions were reported. The most recent unexploded submunition casualties were recorded in 2014, when two casualties occurred.[5] An additional 25 casualties, which occurred during cluster munition strikes in 1999, were also recorded.[6]



[1] Casualty data for 2017 is based on emails from Ahmet Sallova, Head, Kosovo Mine Action Center (KMAC), 17 March 2017, and 22 February 2018; and from Ash Boddy, Regional Director Europe, HALO Trust, 12 March 2018.

[2] Email from Ahmet Sallova, KMAC, 22 February 2018.

[3] Ibid., 17 March 2017.

[4] Email from Ash Boddy, HALO Trust, 12 March 2018.

[5] Handicap International (HI), Circle of Impact: The Fatal Footprint of Cluster Munitions on People and Communities (Brussels: HI, May 2007), p. 69; “Mine wounds two children in Kosovo,” Agence France-Presse (Pristina), 9 April 2007; “Land mine explodes in Kosovo; 4 children injured,” International Herald Tribune, 9 November 2007; email from Bajram Krasniqi, UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), 5 May 2009; and telephone interview with Bajram Krasniqi, UNMIK, 1 July 2009.

[6] HI, Circle of Impact: The Fatal Footprint of Cluster Munitions on People and Communities (Brussels: HI, May 2007), p. 69.