The futility of it all.
 

There might be a different slant or maybe the story has been beaten up but this just about sums up how neglect and lack of leadership can destroy lives.
Hopefully the survivors can somehow get on with what life they have left.


LINK TO STORY

BANJA LUKA, Bosnia (Reuters) - A hand grenade being used instead of a ball in a game of catch exploded early on Saturday killing three youths in this Bosnian town, police and news agencies said.

Two youths aged 19 and 20, one of them from neighboring Croatia, were killed instantly while a 20-year-old woman died on her way to hospital, police said. Her sister was slightly injured but two other youths suffered serious injuries.

The blast occurred at 2:00 a.m. in the western town of Novi Grad at a place in the town center frequented by youngsters. Police said an inquiry was under way and declined further comment. It was not clear why the grenade exploded.

ONASA news agency quoted witnesses as saying the youths tossed the hand grenade to each other before it exploded in the hands of one of them.

Bosnia is awash with illegal weapons left over from the 1992-95 war and tragic incidents are frequent despite several successful campaigns by international peacekeepers and police to get people to hand over illegal weapons.

I think it's terrible that battlefield clenaup isn't what it should be but I dont' have much sympathy for two people who are almost 20 who get killed because they didn't have the common sense to not play with hand grenades.

There are still large areas over there that still haven't been mineswept too, not just in the countryside but in many villages and towns. The Serbian army often just placed mines quickly before leaving, never intending to return. I don't know if any maps exist, and its pretty rugged, stony and woody countryside. It's scary to see the danger-mine signs posted up next to a store or restaurant or house, and you know it's inevitable that kids are going to get killed by them occasionally.

Um. Come again?

I agree. While undoubtedly Bosnia needs a clean up, these were adults. I'd feel pretty awful if it was a couple of 7 year olds, however.

I think Bosnia has some pretty significant problems to deal with beyond this.

Dude, I have no sympathy for these people, and it's not a lack of leadership that contributes to idiocy. If you reach the age of 19 and don't know better than to play catch with a HAND GRENADE, a device designed to EXPLODE, then by the process of natural selection there should be no other outcome.

Do I think it's sad that these weapons still exist? Yes, but given the numerous attempts by several agencies to remove them the people still possessing them have no one to blame but themselves when problems like this occur.

I love how the article refers to them as youths... as if trying to m ake them sound younger than they are... but the 20 year old woman who died was referred to as a woman...
Interesting writing in the article..

Notice the time as well, 2 am? pretty late for "kids" to be out playing! The only other thing missing from the story is the reference to americans and or bush being the ones to giving them the gernade! Still very sad though. Those adults should have known better.

I think this article had natural selection written all over it.

Ditto. It's terrible that they died... But come on. They were playing catch with a hand grenade. Darwin Award, anyone?

Being twenty years of age I have to totally agree on the Darwinism at work here. You certainly wouldn't catch me tossing a gernade around for fun.

Maybe they didn't realise that it would explode?

Battlefield cleanup is a really hard thing to do properly, the cost of shipping a lot of the hardware home is probably higher than leaving it there. In addition its very hard to track every weapon in a country when you are not tracking your own weapons, the US leaving their own weapons there would be bad, leaving opponent's weapons is a lot harder to find. Things like mines when laid by a non-modern army are very hard to track - most don't follow patterns or maintain maps, modern armies tend to map their mines and follow patterns (though some of the techniques are truly ingenious in their positioning!) so are easier to remove.