ANAMA reports on demined areas

To date, approximately 168,000 hectares of land in the liberated territories have been cleared of mines, Azernews reports, citing Ramil Azizov, head of ANAMA's Department of Education and Work with Victims, as he stated this during a roundtable on "Mine Victims in Azerbaijan: Achievements and Future Tasks."

He mentioned that 161,000 mines have been discovered in the cleared areas:

"Approximately 25,000 of these are anti-personnel mines. Since 1991, more than 3,400 people have fallen victim to mines. From the end of the Patriotic War until the end of 2021, there were 77 mine incidents. Since then, as a result of awareness efforts, the number of incidents has decreased by up to 60%."

Note that despite attempts at formally requesting information about the location of those mines, Armenia repeatedly denied that it possessed the relevant information and refused to engage on the issue.

Finally, in February this year, Armenia has submitted 8 minefield maps of territories located in the liberated lands to Azerbaijan. These maps cover some of the areas along the former contact line. However, the maps covering part of the former contact line passing through Khojavand, Tartar, and Goranboy districts, as well as the areas mined by Armenian military units when they retreated in November 2020, has not been submitted yet.

Many have suspicions about these maps because previous minefield maps submitted by Armenia were inaccurate. Only 25 percent of these maps were correct. Especially submitting minefield maps of the height where civilians do not live increases this suspicion. It is also worth noting that more than 55% of recent landmine cases have occurred outside the areas covered by the information provided.

The behavior that Armenia displayed by relation to the landmine threat is indeed another setback to the peace and confidence-building measures taken during the post-conflict period in the region.

It is worth noting that because of Azerbaijan's liberated territories remain contaminated with mine, the new infrastructure and green energy projects remains a risky and problematic goal. These obstacles to a legal peace are part of the challenges facing the repopulation, development and integration of the liberated territories on the path to a full peace.

The Azerbaijan National Agency for Mine Action, known as ANAMA, has grown from a fledgling organization to one fully equipped to clear mines, provide risk education and assist survivors of accidents. Today ANAMA's efforts are aimed to continue increasing and expansion of mine action capacity to provide the clearance of all liberated areas of Azerbaijan.