During the war not all contaminated areas were cleared. So many cluster bombs were used, there were so many duds left, that we couldn’t manage to clear them all. Clearance activities were still ongoing in 2000. Before NATO bombings I didn’t have any contact with cluster munitions. By November 2000 I had cleared thousands of bomblets. On 9 November 2000, I was accompanying a group of engineers visiting the Dubinje airport in Sjenica in south-west Serbia.

This time, I was supposed to enter the airfield premises first to check if there were some unexploded cluster munitions. Normally you always go in team but as there was lot of work in that period, and I was the only deminer that could come along with this team of engineers, so I went alone. There were no bomblets inside the buildings, but then they called me to inform me that they had found were six or seven BLU 97 duds close to the runway. I went there; I started working on the first bomblet. It was in the grass. I came closer to it, I moved the grass to get a better approach and it detonated. I am not sure I have even touched it. I lost four limbs, my hearing was damaged, as well as my eyes (I was blind for several months after the accident), I suffered blast effect injuries to head and lungs.

I was conscious most of the time. The other soldiers carried me to the car. They brought me to the ambulance in the closest town, Sjenica. In the ambulance there was no doctor. The paramedical personnel put bandages on my wounds to stop the bleeding and try somehow to kill my pain. We drove to Uzice. It took us about one hour and a half. My condition were worsening; I lost lot of blood as my arteries were cut. In the ambulance I was still conscious but I started feeling I was dying, it felt like my heart was stopping, I could hear the beats become less and less frequent. When I arrived at the hospital I was almost dead. My heart, my lungs, they had stopped functioning.

For four days I was in a coma. I was operated for four hours. Then I got transported to Belgrade, to the Military Medical Academy Hospital. I spent four years at the Military Medical Academy Hospital in Belgrade. I was dismissed on October 2004. During these four years I had more than 20 operations: 4 times one leg, 5 times the other leg, skin transplants, 5 times each of the arms, one operation to my ear, operations to remove shrapnel from my forehead. They did also plastic surgery.

For 3 years I never went out from the hospital. My mum and my sister were always there, visiting me at the hospital, as for a long period all my body was covered with bandages. Everything except my eyes. The 4th year I was allowed to go out every second weekend. I started to readapt to everyday life gradually. When I came out of the hospital everything was difficult. I had to accept the world, the eyes of the people, the stares. I was lucky as my doctors gradually let me readapt to the outside world. When I finally left the hospital I was somehow prepared. I now live alone in my apartment in Novi Beograd.

In April 2006 Jelena from NPA found an article on me on the Internet. She decided to contact me. That is how I started my cooperation with the CMC. She told me about her work – she was doing a research on consequences of cluster munitions use in Serbia at that time – and the work of Cluster Munition Coalition, campaign to ban cluster munitions, all the organizations involved. And I told her that I wanted to get involved, that I wanted to contribute in any way I can. That’s how my involvement with CMC started.

I have to say this again: I was fighting cluster bombs while I was working on their disposal, I was fighting unexploded ordnance, not people – my primary goal was to clear as much as possible, to avoid that further civilian lives would be lost. It was my choice, not an order I received. I was aware at the time how dangerous this work was, I was aware of everything that could happen, but I also knew that this work had to be done, that it cannot be postponed. Sometimes a human life depends on hours, even minutes, that’s why we worked all the time, even with the air raid sirens sounding. Everybody in this business knows that – you accept the responsibility and the risk, because you know how important this work is. But what happened to me and what happened to 45 of my colleagues working on clearance in Lebanon for the past year is a good enough illustration of how dangerous these bombs are. There comes a moment when your knowledge and experience cannot help you much. These weapons are monstrous and they cannot be controlled.

What I am doing now, as a spokesperson for CMC, is a continuation of this fight. It is again my wish and my choice to contribute in any way I can to actions that would put a stop to all further production, use, transfer of cluster munitions; or, in other words, creation and proliferation of a monstrous weapon that primarily kills and maims civilians, which is something I’ve been a witness to. A total ban is the only way to go – no exceptions, no excuses.

And we cannot stop there; a ban in itself means a lot, even if you are one of the persons already affected by those weapons. But we cannot leave it at that – provisions have to be made that would guarantee rights and assistance to survivors, families of the victims, communities affected. I was in a position to receive medical treatment in time, I was lucky enough to have good doctors who understood the necessity of proper rehabilitation and re-socialization. My situation could have been better, it could have been worse. But thousands of people injured living with injuries caused by these munitions cannot depend on their good luck; they cannot be left to deal with the consequences on their own. This is the place where international community should step in.

I always say that it is not my role to condemn or accuse anyone for the past events – there is no point in doing that. My role in this process is to pass on my first hand experience with this weapon. What I would like everybody taking part in or even just observing this process to do is to learn from my experience, experience of thousands of survivors, use common sense and come to the only sound decision: that cluster munitions should be banned with no exceptions, further sufferings avoided and means and methods found for support and assistance to survivors, victims’ families and communities affected.

Thank you”