Pokémon Go players in Bosnia warned to steer clear of landmines - The Guardian https://t.co/BxqRq2X1ZWpic.twitter.com/ehh4T4woVR
— Pokemon News (@PokemonsNews) July 20, 2016
Bosnia is littered with thousands of mines, the dangerous remnants of the Bosnian War, which ended after over three years of bitter fighting in 1995.
Hundreds have been killed since then after accidentally setting off the mines, which are scattered across the country.
But Pokémon Go, which encourages players to explore the real world around them in a quest to catch 'em all, presents a unique new threat. That's because recently players have been wandering into fields explicitly marked as potentially containing land mines, players who, like the one pictured above, might do anything to snag a Zapdos.
“Today we received information that some users of the Pokémon Go app in Bosnia were going to places which are a risk for (unexploded) mines, in search of a pokemon,” Posavina bez mina, an NGO, said Monday on Facebook. “Citizens are urged no to do so, to respect demarcation signs of dangerous mine fields and not to go into unknown areas."
According to the Guardian, 2.3 percent of the country's total area is said to be covered in land mines, and hundreds of thousands people live in close proximity to them.
And among those, presumably, are a good chunk of Pokémon Go players, who now can't say they haven't been warned.