Bosnia in major anti-drug drive

By Nicholas Walton
BBC News, Sarajevo

Many families depend on casual work to survive

A major anti-drug campaign is launched on Thursday in Bosnia-Hercegovina, involving police from across the country as well as EU advisers.

Bosnia suffers badly from being on a major smuggling route.

One of the commodities being traded is heroin, coming from Afghanistan, through Turkey, then through the Balkans on the way to western Europe.

The division and misery left behind by the Bosnian war, just over a decade ago, have made the problem even worse.

Some of the drugs never makes it to western Europe, but ends up here - on the streets of towns and cities like Sarajevo.

A small bag can cost as little as a couple of dollars.

The anti-drug boss for the Sarajevo area said the sharp increase is because of young people having no job and no life.

But there are other reasons - Bosnia is still divided into two separate halves, with separate and often underfunded police forces.

They are no match for organised criminal gangs which flourished in the chaos after the war.

Sometimes there are successes - such as almost 40kg of heroin found in two apartments in the capital last year.

But one official estimate suggests that only 10% of heroin coming into Bosnia is intercepted.