Category: Humanitarian Mine Action Albania

Family Through all this there has been the quiet story of my family. My wife, Rudina, who was born into a Military family, who knows how to run a house with a husband who disappears for days and comes back with mud on his boots and sleep in his eyes.  Our son, Lindi, was born… Continue reading A Short History: Humanitarian Mine Action Albania – Chapter 10

Geneva, PSSM, A New Mission When Clearance Was Almost Finished In 2008 we were close to the end of clearance, and the money was moving to other countries. Every year I went to Geneva to present our progress in Humanitarian Mine Action (HMA) and ask for financial help to finish the work. A Canadian Ambassador… Continue reading A Short History: Humanitarian Mine Action Albania – Chapter 9

The Gërdec Explosion The Day Everything Changed It was a Saturday, almost midday, in March 2008. I was home in Tirana and thinking about taking my children to the sea for a few hours. I was waiting in the coffee bar downstairs when suddenly the glasses on the tables shook. A shockwave exploded across the… Continue reading A Short History: Humanitarian Mine Action Albania – Chapter 8

UXO Hotspots Clearance Program In 2000, the Swiss contributed in kind, in the form of a Technical Advisor named Franz Bear, to assist in the Demining Program. He worked with us for almost 10 years. In the end of the demining program I said to him, that’s it, we have finished, and he said to… Continue reading A Short History: Humanitarian Mine Action Albania – Chapter 7

War Work and the Birth of Mine Action By 1999 the war in Kosovo was raging on our borders. Yugoslav forces were fighting the Kosovo Liberation Army across the border, villages were burning, and streams of families were fleeing into northern Albania with what they could carry. Our own border districts took heavy shelling, cluster… Continue reading A Short History: Humanitarian Mine Action Albania – Chapter 6

A personal story from post-war Albania that shows how humanitarian mine action enables safety, development, and the possibility of home A Door Opens, a Home Begins In those years we lived like students with a family. One bedroom, a little corridor around a bed, a small window, a couch pushed to a corner, our son… Continue reading A Short History: Humanitarian Mine Action Albania – Chapter 5

Learning to Disarm, Learning to Lead In 1998 the Ministry of Defense created a special unit to stop the chain of accidents and to start cleaning the mess of landmines. I moved from Hookas to Tirana and was asked to help set up the division. Under the Partnership for Peace alliance came teams from the… Continue reading A Short History: Humanitarian Mine Action Albania – Chapter 4