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The UNDP paid for this explosive waste incinerator in Bosnia
Bosnian gun lottery scheme ends
By Nicholas Walton
BBC News, Sarajevo
Explosive Waste Incinerator in Bosnia
A month-long trial of a scheme to get Bosnians living in the Sarajevo area to hand in illegal weapons is ending.
People who have handed in guns and grenades have been rewarded with tickets to a special lottery.
More than a decade after the Bosnian war ended, the country still has about 500,000 illegal weapons.
About one-fifth of Bosnians still own guns and the authorities say collecting all of the weapons by conventional searches will take 20 years.
Guns for prizes
It sounds like an idea for a bizarre game show - hand in your firearm and win a kitchen appliance - but the issue behind this project is a serious one.
Since the war, peacekeepers have collected 50,000 weapons, ranging from machine guns and grenades to a couple of tanks.
But the authorities say that at present rates it will be another 20 years before all of them are collected.
That is why this lottery has been introduced, to get people to hand in their guns with the incentive of winning televisions, motorbikes and fridges.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is testing the idea in the Sarajevo area.
"The idea behind it is that there are actually only several ways of getting weapons from civilians," says the UNDP's Stefan Priesner.
"Either one does searches or you use incentives to get weapons."
If the UNDP judges the lottery a success it says it will use the idea to tackle the problem all over Bosnia-Hercegovina.
More conventional searches for illegal weapons will also continue.
Just last week international peacekeepers collected more than 400 hand grenades from two small towns not far from Sarajevo.
The UNDP paid for this explosive waste incinerator in Bosnia
Bosnian gun lottery scheme ends
By Nicholas Walton
BBC News, Sarajevo
Explosive Waste Incinerator in Bosnia
A month-long trial of a scheme to get Bosnians living in the Sarajevo area to hand in illegal weapons is ending.
People who have handed in guns and grenades have been rewarded with tickets to a special lottery.
More than a decade after the Bosnian war ended, the country still has about 500,000 illegal weapons.
About one-fifth of Bosnians still own guns and the authorities say collecting all of the weapons by conventional searches will take 20 years.
Guns for prizes
It sounds like an idea for a bizarre game show - hand in your firearm and win a kitchen appliance - but the issue behind this project is a serious one.
Since the war, peacekeepers have collected 50,000 weapons, ranging from machine guns and grenades to a couple of tanks.
But the authorities say that at present rates it will be another 20 years before all of them are collected.
That is why this lottery has been introduced, to get people to hand in their guns with the incentive of winning televisions, motorbikes and fridges.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is testing the idea in the Sarajevo area.
"The idea behind it is that there are actually only several ways of getting weapons from civilians," says the UNDP's Stefan Priesner.
"Either one does searches or you use incentives to get weapons."
If the UNDP judges the lottery a success it says it will use the idea to tackle the problem all over Bosnia-Hercegovina.
More conventional searches for illegal weapons will also continue.
Just last week international peacekeepers collected more than 400 hand grenades from two small towns not far from Sarajevo.
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