Glasgow woman plays key role in stopping weapons from Balkans getting to terrorists

Steph Branwell regularly finds herself surrounded by pistols, machine guns and rocket launchers, as she leads a team helping the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) officially register a massive stockpile of over 60,000 arms.

The 24-year-old heads up a HALO Trust task force funded by the UK Government and other donors, with the aim of tightening up security around the Bosnian military’s massive arsenal.

The HALO Trust says the project to develop a new weapons marking and registration system for the armed forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina is thought to have not just made safe 95 per cent of the country’s arsenal, it has set a path for similar programmes across the Western Balkans.

Ammunition manufactured in Bosnia was used by terrorists for the Paris attacks in 2015, while the gunman who killed four people in November’s Vienna attack also used an automatic rifle from the former-Yugoslavia.

Ms Barnwell admitted it took her a while to get used to being surrounded by weapons.

Steph said: “I’ve gone from only ever seeing the odd gun at airports or on the news, to working in warehouses with crates full of them.

“I remember the first time I saw these huge crates full of machine guns. It was completely surreal. It seems so alien for most Scots to hold a gun. It was not a job requirement, but I decided to visit a firing range to give me some confidence that I could handle the weapons safely.

“The kickback you get from firing a gun and how loud the sound was, was very much a shock.

“It now almost feels normal for me now to be surrounded by hundreds of guns. I’ve slowly got more comfortable with it.”

Since 2017, HALO, a non-political and non-religious registered British charity and American non-profit organisation which removes debris left behind by war, in particular land mines, has worked with the armed forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the European Force in Bosnia to oversee an innovative weapons management system that has registered 63,000 weapons – thereby preventing them being diverted for criminal and violent use.

The Balkan Wars of the 1990s left large quantities of weapons in poorly managed stockpiles and in the hands of military and police as well as militias and civilians. Subsequently, the Balkans has become an acknowledged source of guns diverted from official stockpiles for illicit use in Europe and elsewhere.

An assessment of the project was carried out by the Bonn International Centre for Conversion and concluded: “Measured against its purpose—and in terms of efficiency—HALO’s marking and registration project in BiH has been a success. The preparation phase, specifically the logistical coordination and design of the database, proved to be more demanding than the marking procedure itself. The transfer of HALO’s experiences elsewhere therefore need to consider the substantial preparatory legal and political input as well as the logistical and training requirements.”

Ms Barnwell leads a team of six Bosnians working with the Balkan country’s army to catalogue weapons on special marking machines developed by Sheffield firm Pryor Marking Technology.

She said: “We are helping the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina to build a digital stockpile to stop weapons falling into the wrong hands.

“We have registered approximately 60,000 pieces of small arms and have catalogued over 250 different types of weapons. That ranges from pistols to AK-47s, M-16s, up to huge mortars and two-person carry items that are fixed to vehicles.

“It’s a burden for the Bosnian army to manage that stockpile given the country’s relatively small number of soldiers. It creates an environment where weapons could go missing, as it’s difficult to keep track of what you have.

“Our registration database will allow the armed forces to keep a digital record that cannot be edited, it cannot be falsified.”

She added: “This will help key partners better manage their weapons stockpiles. This is crucial to increasing civilian safety in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Balkans, and across Europe.

“The ammunition used for the Charlie Hebdo and Bataclan attacks in Paris were originally manufactured in Bosnia. The weapon used in November’s Vienna attack was essentially a Balkan made AK-47.

“So, there are real-life implications of what we are attempting to stop. There’s no direct evidence that any of these weapons have ended up in the UK, but this database helps eliminate that threat.”

Paris terrorists, brother Said and Cherif Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly, had amassed a €25,000 arsenal, including three Kalashnikovs, a Skorpion submachine gun, grenades and a rocket launcher. The bullets used for the 2015 attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo had been manufactured by a state-owned factory on the outskirts of Sarajevo in 1986.

Ms Barnwell says that that the Bosnian authorities are determined to tackle the problem.

She said: “This project was started in 2017 and we have had nothing but support from all parts of the Bosnia and Herzegovina government. They are committed to improving safety and security both in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and more widely across Europe.

“A lot of these items have just been sitting in storage in warehouses since the war in the 1990s and our work is tightening up security around these huge stockpiles.

“HALO’s work allows them to have an itemised catalogue of exactly what weapons they have, where it is, what condition it is in.

“They will be able to search our database and say ‘Okay, we have this many M-16s that are in serviceable order, this many that need repaired, this many that don’t work any more’ and then they’ll be able to make informed decisions about what they keep and what they destroy.

“There is no direct evidence that any of these weapons have ended up in the UK, but as Paris and Vienna have shown, the threat is always there.

“I’m proud to be playing a part eliminating that threat by helping Bosnia and Herzegovina get on top of the problem and make streets everywhere safer.”

The work is funded by the UK, Germany, Norway and the UN agency UNSCAR and coordinated by EUFOR Mission (Operation Althea), the European Union’s military deployment working to help the Bosnia and Herzegovina government improve security and stability.

HALO has received £108,000 over the past two years for weapons marking and registration through the UK Government’s Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF) and Defence Engagement Provision (DEP).

Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Minister Wendy Morton said: “We are proud to be funding Steph’s work with The HALO Trust to stop weapons falling into the wrong hands.

“This is a wonderful example of how the UK Government is working with Scottish aid workers and NGOs to be a force for good in the world.

“Our Ambassador to Sarajevo, Matt Field, met recently with HALO’s CEO James Cowan, to discuss how we can provide ongoing support through the UK’s Conflict, Stability and Security Fund.”