Recovering from the record flooding of the past week will cost Bosnia and Serbia billions that neither country has, officials said on Wednesday.
Serbia, like much of the Balkans, is poor. The country's economy has failed to recover fully following the wars and international sanctions in the 1990s, and also is hobbled by mismanagement and corruption. The unemployment rate officially stands at
On Wednesday, a mine exploded near the northern village of Cerik, where the flooding had moved one of the more than 9,000 minefields left over from Bosnia's 1992-95 war. Nobody was hurt.
Opposition parties want to make politics out of this. They are doing vendetta and keeping an eye on elections, says govt. (Photo: PTI)
Bosnia has one of the weakest economies in Europe and an unemployment rate of up to 44 percent. Almost no one has property insurance, meaning many residents lost virtually everything.
Serbia's minister for construction, transportation and infrastructure, Zorana Mihajlovic, said 3,500 kilometers (2,200 miles) of roads have been destroyed or damaged and 30 percent of railway lines are closed.
The flooding has led to at least 51 deaths: 27 in Serbia, 22 in Bosnia, and two in Croatia.
The flooding affected 40 percent of Bosnia, Foreign Minister Zlatko Lagumdzija said. It wrecked the main agriculture industry in the northern flatlands, wiping out infrastructure, farms, buildings and homes. One quarter of the country's 4 million
Both countries already have opened negotiations with the European Union to support reconstruction efforts. Separately, Bosnia's Serb region has opened talks with its ally Russia.
In neighboring Serbia, Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said damages could reach 1.5 billion euros ($2 billion).
Although there's no official total for flood damages, the Raiffeisen Investment Group said in a note to investors that preliminary estimates are nearly 1.3 billion euros ($1.8 billion) for Bosnia alone. Bosnian President Bakir Izetbegovic said the