Kurdish NGOs in expanding role in mine clearance

Kurdish NGOs are taking up a greater role in mine clearance in northern Iraq, a task traditionally carried out by international groups. After years of fighting between the Kurdish north and the regime of Saddam Hussein, as well as intra-Kurdish conflict and problems with neighbouring countries, the area is one of the most heavily mined in the Middle East. Some estimates put the number of mines and units of unexploded ordnance (UXOs) as high as 10 million. The Tiroj Demining Organisation (TDO), based in the northern city of Dahuk was established in October 2002. Its acting executive director, Sirwan Isma'il, told IRIN that it now had 11 teams working on mine marking and clearance, with 400 staff in the field and nearly 80 at its office. It was set up with funding from the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) through the Oil-for-Food Programme, and has worked closely with international mine-clearance agencies, particularly whenever it needs specialised equipment and skills. Sirwan said conflicts such as the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and struggles between the two main Kurdish parties in the 1990s had left the region saturated with mines. "We wish they were only on the borders, but they are all over Dahuk [Governorate]," he said. He estimates that it will take 15 years to clear the countryside to UN criteria, due to the work being of necessity both painstaking and dangerous. This meant that people were still being killed and injured every day. Last year about 500 people died from mine explosions in the north of Iraq, Sirwan said. Most were farmers or shepherds in the country, or children who stumbled on unfamiliar objects, which then exploded. For this reason he wanted to increase the number of mine-clearance teams, but this required funds and more skilled people. According to the UK-based Mines Advisory Group (MAG) over 750 villages are heavily mined or have UXOs. A training school funded by the UN ceased functioning after the Oil-For-Food Programme was handed over to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), but as discussions on the school's future are continuing there were hopes that it might reopen soon. TDO’s current contracts are worth about US $2.5 million and it is expected the CPA will continue funding it. Meanwhile, however, the Iraqi planning ministry will cover the gap. Sirwan said it was TDO’s ambition to clear its own area of mines and then apply its skills to helping other countries facing the same problems. In Arbil, the Kurdish mine-clearance group ARAS was also set up last year with funding from UNOPS. The ARAS finance assistant, Faruq Mustafa, told IRIN in Arbil that it now had 380 operational staff carrying out marking, clearance and detonating UXOs. "We got a lot of information and experience from international NGOs, and now we can serve our own country and help NGOs throughout Iraq," Faruq said. However, he welcomed both sustained and new help from foreign groups as a way to expedite speed mine clearance in the country and thereby to bring to an end the daily tragedies resulting from accidents involving mines and UXOs. "I used to work in a centre for mine victims in Arbil and every day I saw the results and the sadness these things caused. I also come from the mountains, so I know how many mines there are and how dangerous they are. Maybe you can’t believe it, but if you go to these areas you will see the mines and the victims," Faruq said. Not only were people being killed or injured but also much potentially productive land was had to be left fallow until it was cleared of mines. Faruq also hoped that the skills ARAS had learnt could be used to help local groups in southern and central Iraq which until now had had little information on or experience of mine clearance. But it is not only mine clearance per se in which the Kurdish groups are engaged in. In Dahuk, Sulaymaniyah and Arbil governorates, the Kurdistan Organisation for Mine Awareness is working to warn people of the dangers of mines and UXOs. Midya Hammad, the assistant supervisor of KOMA’s Dahuk sub-office, told IRIN that no one had ever recorded how many mines, but with so many conflicts affecting the region over the last 30 years, it was certain that they were very numerous. The Turkish government’s struggle with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the infighting between the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in Arbil, as well as UXOs from the recent war, had all added to the problems being faced. KOMA was formed in 1999 and, like other mine-clearance groups, received funding from UNOPS, but now hoped to be able to rely on the CPA. In Dahuk, seven four-member teams are touring villages conducting surveys on the population, and the presence of mines and its effects on the residents. Basing themselves on the information thus collected, they then provide the villages with lectures, high-impact films on the dangers of mines and UXOs, information leaflets and puppet shows for children. In each village they also appoint and instruct a safety warden, who reports to the team and organises meetings about the dangers of mines and UXOs. KOMA tries to keep its message focused on people all the time by means such as providing shepherds with bags inscribed with the organisation’s message and similarly marked wall clocks and small carpets for mosques, schools and health centres. In badly contaminated regions, KOMA has run month-long summer schools providing children with intensive education on the dangers of mines and UXOs. Female team members were important for briefing women and children in the villages, Midya said. All these activities, coupled with the actual mine clearance efforts, had served towards significantly reducing the number of deaths and injuries resulting from accidents with mines and UXOs, she added. However, the KOMA still faced the problem of some villagers using the explosive devices they found for their own ends, often keeping them in their houses. They extracted the TNT from mines for blast fishing and blowing up rocks for building material. Some villagers also used mines during tribal battles or feuds between neighbours, re-laying mines on the roads, she said.