Armenianow.com
3 Dec 2004
;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.