Peacekeepers in Bosnia. The British Army has been here for more than a decade through one of the bloodiest civil wars of the last century. They are part of the multinational NATO force S4. Their job to stop a new outbreak of war. Every 6 months, a fresh regiment arrives. >> For the first time, the British army has allowed cameras to follow its Bosnian peacekeepers [music] in action. Today, the bomb disposal team is home on the range, detonating explosives found in weapon searches. life on tour doing without sex. >> Males aren't allowed in the female accommodation and vice versa. >> And doing almost without drink, >> but two cams is not enough. I mean, the first cam doesn't even touch the side as anybody will know. >> I'm the commanding officer of the Mangaluca Metal Factory here in Bosnia. Uh, this is my train set, >> Baluca Base in Northern Bosnia called the Metal Factory because it's been built around a disused metal works. The army leases the base from a local businessman paying £30,000 a month for the privilege. >> Because this was the only factory in and around Bangaluca area, I mean, it employed 700 people, which is quite a lot. And of course when the war started in ' 92, they all left and joined their various army armies um and it just ceased production. Yeah, somebody owns it and we pay him um rent every every month for it. [music] I think far too much, but who am I to say how much we pay rent for? 30 odd,000 uh a month rent. A lot of money. We support everybody that's in this uh in in this place. Um [music] we give them life support basically. We feed them, we clothe them, and we accommodate them. We make them better if they're ill. We look after their teeth. We give them water. We just look after their their their needs. Whether there's not enough yogurts for lunchtime or the spoons are too big for supper or breakfast finishes 1 minute early. Yes, I have to sort all those problems out. You have to be a real diplomat. I call myself ambassador, right? Um, and I I'm also commanding officer. Hugs and kisses. And uh, you have to be very diplomatic. The Banya Luca Metal Factory houses 1,400 people, the multinational contingents of S4, British, Canadian, and Dutch soldiers along with a handful of German and American specialists. One of the units here is the British Explosives Ordinance Disposal Team, EOD, or bomb disposal for short. They have one of the most dangerous jobs in the army to defuse bombs on site or take them away and detonate them in controlled explosions. Today they're going out to the range at Manaka to destroy weaponry collected in recent op harvests or arms searches. No, I suppose you kind of get used to doing EOD and you kind of become aware of exactly what you can and cannot do with it. As long as you have respect for the actual ammunition itself, you you'll be fine. But most of the stuff we get out here is is fairly safe cuz a lot of it people have stored underneath their beds and in cupboards and stuff like it's been there for years. And uh by the time you come to it, it's it's already pinned. It's fairly safe just by taking away all their their weapons and exposing everything. It's the end of the day, it's just going to save lives. So, if they've got nothing to uh throw each other and shoot each other with, there's nothing they can really do to hurt each other. So, yeah, I think what we do is is important job. It definitely needs doing. Another job that definitely needs doing is manning the main gate. >> It's been 45 minutes. Got another 50 minutes to go. >> Why don't you do an hour now? >> Yeah. Then we go on the VIP gate and just switch off every hour. >> At the moment, it's the turn of the Canadians to do guard duty. How long are you on for? >> Three months. >> All right, mate. Cheers. >> You're on You're here on Gate Duty for three months. >> Yeah, >> that's what we're doing. >> That's all we're doing. We've got lots of opportunities to go up to uh up to the uh c uh Bosnian Croatian border, >> do patrols with the uh the Welsh that are up there. And um we've also had offers to go on patrols with a bunch of the uh Brits around this camp as well. So, >> so you're here day in day out for 3 months on the gate. >> Mhm. >> Does it not get boring? >> Terribly. [laughter] Very, very boring. Very monotonous. Uh, our job is not hard. >> A convoy of five EOD Land Rovers has made its way to Manaka after stopping at the ammunition bunker to pick up the boxes of explosives to be detonated. Bomb disposal is dangerous, but after years of training, getting to recognize and understand every type of explosive device, the fear goes and the force of habit kicks in. Well, listening guys, the range brief for today, um, welcome to Manaka South Range. You've been here before. Um, the two pits we'll be using, I'll show you later on. The explosives area will be kept in the back of my Land Rover and the, um, for more infraction stuff is in the back of S. Fton's Land Rover. We'll get the four more infraction stuff out first lay out and I've already detailed you out into different serals. Everybody wear helmets and body armor on the range and the uh just to remind you that uh if you see anything on the range here that you don't like the look of or are unsure of make make you aware of myself or Son this is a live range used by the VRS army and goodness knows what they left down here for us. >> The VRS is today's Bosnian Serb army. During the civil war here, Serb soldiers were notorious, often halftrained and undisiplined. They committed many atrocities. >> Today, their army is smaller and they say better organized and controlled. >> Bill, are we blowing these pits at the same time? >> Yeah, >> it's just a combat body armor. >> Just gives you limited protection against sort of fragmentation if anything did go off. >> Right. What's this? But this protects your heart. Yeah, that actually will protect your main or like your heart and uh the rest of it will stop sort of minor fragmentation major on it. >> Yeah, I haven't done so many have a helmet with a mind visor in the front which will protect my face. >> What is half of what's here up to about there? Today's menu includes 39 grenades, two high explosive anti-tank grenades, one rocket launcher, 11 mortar shells, 13 explosive blocks, and assorted rifle grenades and small arms. Sprinkle in some plastic explosive of your own. Stir together and you should brew up a nice little explosion. So, >> these all just been picked up from people's houses. Basically, yeah, most of these actually come from the pick up the police station every day, which is basically just where locals come along to the police station, just hand in the weapons that they have and ammunition they have. So, this is just from people's houses. Yeah. Sheds underneath the beds, things like that. >> So, not from the army, not from the >> No, these are basically what's left of from the war. Basically, people just kept ammunition for themselves, etc. The explosives have to be carefully laid in two pits ready to be packed round with charges for controlled detonation from a safe distance. Clean my bag and tribute bag. That's >> coming up. What happens if it doesn't go off? >> If it doesn't go off, then it's going to cost me a crate. So, it's in my interest for it to go off or else I'm going to be out. Sorry. 20 quid. >> And drinking on base. How much is enough? On the range at Manaka, the explosives and ordinance disposal team is ready to lay the plastic explosive and fuses. Then they'll run the detonation cord, debt cord in the jargon, back to the firing point a kilometer away. All you need is a small amount to set off the actual explosion inside the actual thing and then it'll blow from there. I think it's 6,000 m a second or something cord burns at. And all you simply do is connect the detonate cord into the P4 and then that will connect up to the ring main which will have a detonator which will set us all off in a big one. Basically you start with a small small amount explosive but extremely sensitive and it just builds up until you get to the P4 which is obviously less sensitive. >> What happens if it doesn't go off? >> That's the BD earns his money comes back down and see what's wrong with it. Basically, if it doesn't go off or it doesn't go off correctly, we'll wait a uh a soap period [clears throat] and then one of the BDOS's will come down and just see what's happened. >> BDOS's are bomb disposal officers, the lucky ones who take the biggest risks. >> Where does that go, Paddyy? That wire. >> This goes into the um into the receiver here. >> This is a DRFD. It's demolition remote firing device. And this is what we use to blow our demolitions. >> [snorts] >> This will be linked up till the deck cord, the gray cord you can see running along the ground. That's the initiation point. This receiver, the receiver stays here at the dam. The transmitter goes to the BDO. So the firing point is just 1,000 meters away. And then you can blow the demolition from there safely. On base, the soldiers quarters are Spartan steel boxes stacked on top of each other called Cormex. >> This is my place. St. John'swood J1. >> Yeah, if you like. Do you really want to? >> Oh, just to see what they look like inside. It's nice. >> I'm going to go and tidy it up now. Um, well, I'm ready to pack. I'm off on 96 hour uh pass uh on Friday going off to see my wife and children in UK and the rest of the family. This is my corette. [snorts] Got a desk, got a bed, my television cupboard, alarm clock to wake me up in the mornings. So, I'm quite comfortable in here. For the ordinary soldiers, life on tour has its plus points along with quite a few minuses compared to what's available back at their home bases in Britain or Germany. Private Katie Mercer, also known as Bubbles, works in admin in the multinational division's headquarters. She's 21 and is normally based in Germany. You're not allowed out of camp unless you've got an escort and whereas I'm in get a slow you can just go into town every day after work but here you're confined to camp and you're stuck with everyone for 24 hours so you can't really get away from everyone cuz all the living quarters is close proximity to each other as well so it's not like you can get away. These two rows are all female and then the other six rows back there are all male >> and they're not allowed to mix. No, ma males aren't allowed in the female accommodation, vice versa. >> And what would happen if they got caught? >> You You're in front of the CEO cuz it's on orders that you're not allowed to mix in with the >> during the day. It's not too bad, but you're talking after 8:00, 9:00 when you're up in the mail accommodation. >> So that's when they they look at you a bit funny and you can get in trouble for it. Yeah. >> Even though you might not be doing anything. >> Yeah. Even if you're just watching a video, they still write out. I mean, do they tend to get sort of quite friendly or even sort of fall for people when they're out? >> Yeah, there's few relationships on camp, but um obviously they haven't been caught otherwise they'll be in trouble, but there's a few relationships because you're always you're close together for the six months. I mean 6 months is a long time obviously be away from home as well. So >> So you're not But so if somebody But what if they want to just go out with them? sort of quite, you know, like a boyfriend. >> Fratonizing isn't allowed >> really. Well, even if they didn't have sex, they couldn't sort of go out to be seen as a couple together. >> Well, you can, but kissing in like EOS or Tommy Tuckers is going to look a bit dodgy. So, I don't think people don't do it. Not I haven't seen it for the past six months anyway. you're thrown into a situation that if people do like have a relationship together, it's not it's not going to be true, is it? Because you're in a situation that you wouldn't normally be in. >> So, I do there's a few nice people around. >> But what about the guys? Don't they get frustrated like if they're away for 6 months or >> I'm assuming that they do, but >> there is a lot to do if people uh want to do it. I I do calligraphy in the evenings. Um I've got about five or six names. That's that's enough to be able to do calligraphy for an hour once a week. We've got cooking coming up. We've got Serbo Crowat. We've got Clay courses, computer literacy and information technology. And we've just had a another class and it's called um beer and wine making where there's about 600 people that's actually asked to uh attend that. This is inside the metal factory. Uh it's very big. Uh but it's grim as well and gets very very cold in the winter. Uh and there again gets very warm in the summer but a bit grim. A lot of dust and crap about. >> As the soldiers are restricted to base, they need facilities to keep them busy. Fiveside football, tennis, basketball, even a mobile cinema. >> And it's a wonderful facility. You can get about 80 people there watching films and there's four films on every day. Good facility. >> You don't think they're too spoiled? >> I don't think they're spoiled at all. Um, they come out they come over here for 6 months. We need them to be able to enjoy themselves a little. 6 months is a long time being away. Uh, I know. I've done a few of them. >> People get homesick sometimes. >> Now, you only get homesick when you're at school. When you're at boarding in school. Now, some people obviously get homesick. They miss their wives, children, moms, dad. Um, but it's what like boarding school after you've been back about two or three days, you get stuck into it and just carry on until you come back home again. At Manaka, the EOD team has reached the climax of the day. After hours of painstaking preparation, they're ready for the big bang. >> I can feel the bang coming. >> Is it going to go off, you think? >> Hope so. Hope so. Cuz if it doesn't, it'll cost me a crate of beer. So, >> a crate of beer? >> Yeah. Well, you have to buy a crate of beer if you mess it up. >> Yeah. If it doesn't go off, then it's going to cost me a crate. So, it's in my interest for it to go off or else I'm going to be out. Sort of 20 quid. >> STAND BY. [screaming] FIRING NOW. Guess he's not getting the beers in. [laughter] >> Well done, P. [cheering] >> Talking of beer, it's Saturday on base. The brigadeier has brought in a new rule limiting alcohol consumption, and it's really unpopular. Some of the soldiers feel they could enjoy themselves a whole lot more if the rule was relaxed. >> When you've had a odd week and you want to go for a drink, two cans just bluntly ain't enough. I mean, if you're not going out there to get paralytic and jump off buildings and cause havoc, but two cans is not enough. I mean, the first can doesn't even touch the side as anybody would know after a week. So, no, I don't I think it's good. It's okay during the week cuz people got work Monday to Friday, but Sunday is a day off for everybody here. So, I think the power to be should uh maybe relax it just on a Saturday night. And what's the morale like here? >> Uh, I'm still trying to find it. If anybody can get me a map, I'll go and find it. I mean, it is probably one of the worst I've seen here for a while. But that's just cuz I think it's just cuz two camel. When you think about it, it's quite sad really. They get really They must be a camp full of alcoholics if they get upset cuz they can't have more than two beers at night. But, uh, no, I mean, you just make your own moral really. >> [music] [music] >> It was a lot better when we had more than two cans cuz it's gone down to a two can rule now. >> Um you're only allowed two cans. You get a ration card and two cans it gets marked off on the ration card. When it wasn't, everyone was up singing. Karaoke was a really good night. It was fun. I know what we're a bit inhibited a little bit cuz most people won't want to sing because they haven't had like any alcohol. But I'm on ties at the moment. I'm too [laughter] time to go home and hand over to Jack. Uh he's here for six months. Um, yeah, it's time to go home. Uh, 10 months is long enough, I think. >> Before leaving, Bob gives his successor a tour of his area of responsibility. >> You've obviously seen Bob in action, have you this week? >> I have. Yes. Yes. Um, tough act to follow, I'm sure. >> Easy. It's going to be easy. What's the most difficult thing do you think you've had to deal with while you've been here? >> Trying to catch the odd one or two out that sort of exchange cory mix or has a party with alcohol in their cory mix. They must know I'm coming because uh every time I seem to go down there, it's all clear. Every time big seems to run round, he seems to catch them. I don't know why, but there you go. But it's almost the end really now, isn't it? >> It's never the end until we get on that plane or we step off the other side and then it's another beginning, of course. Colonel Bob will be a hard act to follow, but it's time for him to say goodbye to his diplomatic duties. Dealing with soldiers under the pressure of being away from home, as well as solving international disputes over yogurt pots [music] and meal tiles. [music] >> [music]