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Hidden Danger: Armenian border territory holds 100,000 landmines

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  • Hidden Danger: Armenian border territory holds 100,000 landmines

    Armenianow.com
    3 Dec 2004
    http://www.armenianow.com/eng/?go=pub&id= 341

    Hidden Danger: Armenian border territory holds 100,000 landmines

    By Gayane Lazarian
    ArmeniaNow Reporter

    "For minesweepers wars never end, they keep silent, while mines continue to
    speak," says sapper Henrik Abajyan.
    Abajyan knows what mines can do. In 1998 in the Tavush village of Hartashen,
    pigs were killed by mines and when the caretaker went to check, he became
    the next victim.
    Later, when Abajyan went to the same location, he hit a mine.
    "I lost one leg and half of the other," Abajyan says. "There was a man from
    Kapan with me in hospital, he had also lost his leg from a mine planting in
    his garden."

    300 hectares have been cleared, but 100,000 landmines remain in Armenia
    According to the Humanitarian Demining Center of the Ministry of Defense,
    11,108 hectares of borderline territories are mined in Armenia today,
    totaling some 100,000 mines. The mined territories adjacent to the
    Armenian-Azeri border include the regions of Tavush, Syunik, Ararat and
    Vayk.
    Issues related to landmines were discussed this week during a roundtable
    presented by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Becky Thomson, an
    ICRC consultant for mines in the Caucasus region, said that the impact of
    mines on human life is great, especially in rural communities, where
    villagers, their cattle and agricultural equipment often become victims.
    "People needn't be taught how mines look, they never see them," Thomson
    said. "Mines are buried under the ground or lie invisible on the ground.
    People walking usually look ahead and not down. In mined territories, when
    people start avoiding a path, the grass there grows higher, bones of wild
    animals are seen. All this needs to be seen, these are signs of hidden
    mines. All too often these territories are not marked with special signs."
    Alvard Saribekyan, 35, from the village of Yeraskh lost a cow to a landmine.
    "It was the only cow maintaining our family. Only pieces remained of it, and
    those were pieces that were impossible to sell," says Saribekyan.
    According to data of the Humanitarian Demining Center, 328 people suffered
    from mines in Armenia in the period of 1993-2000 (150 people become victims
    of mines in Afghanistan every month, 80-100 in Angola, 40-60 in Cambodia).
    Mines mainly take their toll in autumn, especially among hunters and
    villagers going for firewood, and also in spring when the sowing campaign
    begins.
    In 1997, 123 countries joined the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel
    mines. These states are obliged not to produce, use or store land
    anti-personnel mines. Within four years they must destroy the stored mines
    and demine their own territories by 2009.
    According to Thomson, as of 2003, 31 million anti-personnel mines have been
    cleared, however 200 million mines are still kept in countries - including
    Armenia - that did not sign the Ottawa Convention.
    Abajyan says 300 hectares have been cleared of mines in Armenia over the
    last two years. According to the estimation of the demining center, there
    are 10-11,000 dangerously explosive mines in Armenia today.
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