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Belgrade (ANTARA News / Xinhua-Oana) - Despite the hostilities in Bosnia and Herzegovina ended 15 years ago, nearly 3.5 percent of the country was still filled with land mines, according to Mine Action Centre (MAC) in Sarajevo, Friday.

Field of landmines that "suspected" and identified in an area of 1573 square kilometers in the country, overall slightly more than half the land mass in the state of Rhode Island.

A total of 220,000 mines and "the bomb did not explode" in 13,077 locations identified as 10-year strategy was initiated in 2009.

According to MAC, the current strategy aims to remove all landmines until 2019 at the latest. Goal is to make Bosnia and Herzegovina as a "landmine free country, and without incident landmines and landmine victims mingled with the people."

Several teams of mine clearance in Bosnia have been identified and destroyed more than 26,000 mines and a variety of anti-personnel explosives since 1996.

During the civil war, 495 people were killed by mines and more than 1200 people were injured, according to MAC.