Clearing Mines and Saving Lives in Karabakh

Text and photographs by Onnik James Krikorian

AMARAS, Nagorno Karabakh — In an almost perfectly idyllic setting, with a monastery dating back to the 4th century and a nearby mulberry orchard, there’s hardly a soul around. Even the church in the complex is empty, save for a small boy waiting to sell candles to anyone who does visit. The roads are devoid of traffic and therefore silent, while the only sound that breaks up the tranquil atmosphere is that of bird song. Mesrop Mashtots, the inventor of the Armenian alphabet, is reputed to have established a pioneering school to use his unique script here at the beginning of the 5th century, but the first time I visited Amaras was by military helicopter in 1994 for another reason entirely.     

This time, however, more than 15 years later, it was with civilian sappers from the British HALO Trust demining charity to cover another war-related story. Despite a tentative peace and relative calm, while it is common knowledge that soldiers still die on the front line each year, what isn’t is that civilians often fall victim to other dangers. Marks on the grass, indicating that a large vehicle had recently stopped nearby, highlighted that only too well. It’s unlikely that the driver knew that he had actually parked in a minefield.

Fortunately, there had been no loss of life or injury but, given a policy of reclaiming agricultural land as well as promoting tourism, it’s an accident waiting to happen. Indeed, it’s not hard to imagine that the vehicle could well have been a coach loaded with tourists from the diaspora. 

Amaras Monastery © Onnik James Krikorian 2011

Roly Clark, HALO’s Program Manager in Karabakh and a veteran of mine clearance operations in Cambodia, Angola and Afghanistan, says that 26 hectares [54.24 acres] were cleared in total. “We found two anti-tank mines and nine items of unexploded ordnance,” he says. “The reason for the low number of mines was probably because it was just nuisance mine laying during the war to stop tanks driving through the orchard.”

The situation, however, is a lot different in other locations. On a visit to Suarasi. in 2006, a village situated less than an hour’s drive outside of Lachin, a mangled lorry lay in a ditch on one side of the road — a tell-tale sign that mines were present. Another seven were believed to remain, but villagers continued to herd their cattle along the route in the mistaken belief that it was safe. Ironically, just a few meters away, forest and grazing land were laden with at least 900 anti-personnel mines. During the war, conscripts from Karabakh had saturated the area to prevent Azerbaijani Special Forces from infiltrating past the line of contact under the cover of night.

The minefield was discovered well over a decade later when a local hunter stepped on a mine. His friend hit a second while attempting a rescue.

The HALO Trust clears a minefield of at least 900 anti-personnel mines in Suarasi. Although laid more than a decade earlier, the minefield had been forgotten until two hunters became its latest victims © Onnik James Krikorian 2006

Heavily saturated during the war with Azerbaijan, the presence of landmines remains an ever-present threat in Suarasi © Onnik James Krikorian 2006

Nevertheless, even if the remainder could be cleared in the near future, that is now looking less likely, given cuts in HALO Trust’s funding for 2011. According to Clarke, a 2007 agreement with the British government came to an end last year and $400,000 will be cut from the charity’s budget otherwise made up from over $1 million from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and a smaller amount from the Julia Burke Foundation. It will, however, mean that at least dozens of deminers will be made redundant.

Controlled detonation of landmines and UXO by the HALO Trust close to Askeran, Karabakh © Onnik James Krikorian 2010

Despite the warning signs, villagers in Suarasi, in territory outside of Karabakh under the control of Armenian forces, still continue to risk life and limb © Onnik James Krikorian 2006

“Funding from the British government has been cut because it changed their mine action strategy,” says Clark. “They came up with a list of countries that will receive funding and Nagorno Karabakh wasn’t one of them. The loss of 60 deminers will therefore mean a reduction in the area cleared of mines and cluster munitions in Karabakh in 2011. This also unfortunately means the date to which communities in Karabakh can look forward to being free from the threat of landmines and UXO will be extended by several years. HALO has tried to raise funding from other governments, but Nagorno Karabakh’s political status and the politics surrounding the region have made it impossible to do so.”

Nevertheless, despite the cut in funding from the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), the British Embassy in Yerevan did host an event for the HALO Trust last December. Ironically, albeit coincidentally, the meeting was held on the same day that Artur Khudatyan was injured by the cluster bomb. Marking 10 years of its work in Karabakh, the HALO Trust invited the local media in the hope of attracting more attention to the problem and perhaps even interest from potential donors. One possible source of additional support, for example, could be the large Armenian diaspora. However, Clarke says that this is not proving as simple as it first might sound.

“We tried very hard to raise money from the diaspora in America in 2007, but without any success,” he explains. “HALO has two offices in Washington and San Francisco and all the major Armenian organizations were approached last year. An appeal signed by Bako Sahakyan, the current President of Nagorno Karabakh, as well as Arkhady Ghukasyan, his predecessor, was sent out to a diaspora mailing list provided by his representative in Washington; the media was contacted, but very little money was raised. Also, the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund was approached in 2007, but that too failed.”

In that letter, both the current and former presidents outlined the urgency of the HALO Trust continuing its work in Karabakh. “Over the last ten years Nagorno Karabakh has suffered a disproportionate level of casualties from mines and UXO, with 294 known victims. On a per capita basis, that is three times as many landmine and UXO victims as in Afghanistan, a country widely acknowledged to be one of the most mined in the world,” it read. “The HALO Trust is the only organization conducting this critical, life-saving work in Nagorno Karabakh …Clearing Nagorno Karabakh of landmines and UXO will save Armenian lives and foster a return to normality more than a decade after the war.”

“With political issues preventing many donor governments from funding HALO in Nagorno Karabakh, we really have to now look to the diaspora for support,” concludes Clarke. “By supporting HALO, the diaspora would be directly helping some of the poorest people of Nagorno Karabakh. Agricultural land cleared of mines would enable rural farmers to cultivate them for the first time since the war and cluster bombs removed from villages would literally save people’s lives.”

First published 2011