Mine clearance continues in Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan`s National Agency for Mine Action (ANAMA) defused nine anti-tank mines and four anti-personnel mines in July.

ANAMA cleared an area of 2,232,269 square metres of mines and unexploded ordnance last month, disabling 483 pieces of unexploded ordnance (UXOs), the agency said in a press release on Monday.

To date, ANAMA has cleared 167,029, 079 sq.m. of land, destroying 662,446 mines and UXOs, Gun.Az reported.

The operations involved 480 mine specialists, 120 rescue workers, six mine-clearing vehicles and 32 specially trained dogs.

The agency is carrying out demining operations in Agdam, Agjabadi, Fizuli, Goranboy, Tartar, Yevlakh and Garadag`s Guzdek settlement.

An Azerbaijani girl, Aygun Shahmaliyeva, was killed by a mine last month and her mother wounded. The mine was placed inside a toy which the child picked out of the Tovuz River. The mine is thought to have come from Armenia.

In another mine incident last month, Hasil Sarkhanov, 19, was hurt by an antipersonnel mine on the contact line separating Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in Tartar District on 28 July.

ANAMA has been working since 1998 to clear landmines and unexploded ordnance from an area of some 163 million square metres.

The ordnance mostly remains from heavy fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh between 1988 and 1994.


/AzerTAc/