By Kevin C. O’Brien
Adopt-A-Minefield
Marketing Manager

 

Radosav Živković takes a call in his STOP Mines office as he allows us see his prosthetic leg.

FROM THE FIELD: Bosnia

A Survivor

Helps Survivors

“The first sentence in my head was, ‘I have to survive… I have to survive,’” Radosav Živković.

 

A landmine survivor himself, Radosav Živković, or Žika (Gee-ka), knows firsthand that,  in order to help survivors they must first be willing to help themselves.

“It gives me some kind of credibility,” Žika explained about surviving the blast that took most of his left leg. “People know that they cannot play with me.”

In 1999 Žika founded STOP Mines in Srpska Republic, Bosnia. Adopt-A-Minefield supports the non-governmental organization's program that gives small interest-free loans to landmine survivors.

So far STOP Mines has loaned $215,000 to 58 people, each of whom have started small businesses or taken-on other construction or agriculture projects with the money.

 

The STOP Mines story really begins way back in 1992 -- during the Civil War to break up the former Yugoslavia. Žika – like most men his age at the time – was conscripted into the military. Two years later Žika was in battler when he watched a nearby companion get shot by a sniper. He knew they were near a landmine field – and they were also under enemy fire – still, Žika ran to help his buddy.
 

“We knew approximately where the minefield was, but because we were in the forest we did not know exactly where it was,” Žika rxplained.

 

 “I was kneeling and I activated a PMA2 landmine,” he said. The PMA2 is a small, but deadly,  pressure activated antipersonnel mine.

 

“I could see my leg open up... I realized what happened right away. I didn’t have any doubt.”

Photos ©AAM by Andris Bjornson

Žika poses in his office with Prairie Summer and Kevin C. O'Brien -- AAM project coordinator and marketing manager.

In the aftermath from the blast the sniper tried shooting Žika three times, but luckily missed. The landmine blast left a ringing in Žika's ears and he could not hear. But he did see another of his companions step on another landmine and get thrown through the air.

“It was like watching on TV,” he said. “I could see the faces… My commander yelling at me to come back – but I just saw his mouth moving,” Žika said.

 

“The first sentence in my head was, ‘I have to survive... I have to survive.’”

Knowing his only chance for survival was to stop the heavy bleeding from his leg, Žika took the cloth used to clean the barrel of his gun and tied it around his own leg as a tourniquet. Žika was later told his heart stopped twice on the way to the field hospital  – but medics revived him.

 

After a year in therapy and being fitted for a prosthetic leg in Belgrade, Serbia, Žika returned to Bosnia.

 

His first job, a mechanical engineer in a factory, paid just $60 a month – so he and two partners ventured off on their own to start a business repairing computers and teaching people how to use them.

And when this business took off, Žika’s first involvement assisting landmine survivors came in giving away used and rebuilt computers through this company.

In fact, the company is still successfully operated by Žika's former partners, who understand why he decided to leave and start STOP Mines.

“I had the right to be involved in this, and I am capable to do something like this,” Žika explained.

STOP Mines loan recipients must repay their loans in 20-monthly installments after an initial five-month grace period, but they are completely interest-free.

There is a checklist of requirements and personal credit information is verified – but a STOP Mines loan is much easier to get than a bank loan. Still, STOP Mines averages 70 percent on-time repayment.

“It’s important to keep this kind of approach,” Žika explained. “We want to help you, but you have to repay. You have to do something. You have to help yourself.”

Loan recipients know that only through timely repayment can this same money also help other survivors -- and that is important to them.

Žika concluded, “If we just gave grants, people don’t care. They are just waiting for tomorrow for another grant.”