When Yugoslavia broke apart in the early 1990s, Croatia was plunged into a brutal conflict known as the Homeland War. By the time the fighting ended in 1995, an estimated 1.5 million landmines had been laid across its fields, forests, and hillsides — silent, invisible, and deadly long after the last soldier went home.
On 28 February 2026, Interior Minister Davor Božinović made an announcement at an event marking International Civil Protection Day in Zagreb, Croatia's capital: every known minefield in the country has been cleared. Croatia is officially mine-free.
It took 31 years to get there. The work claimed 208 lives — including 41 deminers — and cost an estimated €1.2 billion. Teams of specialists, working with metal detectors, heavy machinery, and trained detection dogs, systematically cleared an area that had originally been feared to cover thousands of square miles. In total, around 107,000 mines and 407,000 pieces of unexploded ordnance were safely removed.
Croatia has now joined a small and hard-won group of countries to achieve mine-free status — and the achievement carries weight beyond its own borders. Croatian demining teams, drawing on three decades of hard-won expertise, are already helping Ukraine clear the vast contaminated areas left behind by Russia's invasion. One country's long recovery is now becoming another's lifeline.