In the South Caucasus landmines and civilians trying to make a living are often seen side by side @ Onnik James Krikorian 2006
As thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) return to their former places of residence in the seven regions surrounding what remains of Nagorno Karabakh, the problem of landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) is as pressing as ever. Last month, Vugar Suleymanov, Chair of Azerbaijan’s National Agency for Mine Action (ANAMA), reported that 111,207 hectares of contaminated land had been cleared in past three years since the November 2020 trilateral ceasefire statement.
This included 30,753 anti-personnel mines, 18,531 anti-tank mines, and 60,268 items of Unexploded Ordnance (UXO). There is still much to do and it will take decades, but this is also not a recent problem. It has lingered long and is not only confined to Azerbaijan, though the situation there is far worse than elsewhere in the region. Not only do mines remain from the conflict of the early 1990s, but their full number is unknown with some maps either inaccurate or even non-existent.
In 2006, as part of a decade-long coverage of the topic, and especially on the activities of the HALO Trust in Karabakh, I remember encountering a minefield close to Lachin. The road was laden with anti-tank mines. An estimated 900 PMN anti-personal mines were in an adjacent field. According to the HALO Trust, the mines had been there for over twelve years since Armenian forces scattered them indiscriminately, fearful of a possible counter-offensive by Azerbaijan.
So hastily were they strewn that some even stuck out of the grass, although the mines were also admittedly coloured green. For years they remained there, forgotten by everyone. The anti-tank mines had not detonated because no heavy traffic passed by while ethnic Azerbaijanis had fled long ago and no Armenians had yet settled their land.
[…]
But landmines have also been politicised. There is no point going into the accusations against the HALO Trust, but they were often for partisan reasons from all sides. But it is notable that Azerbaijan managed to veto the extension of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) office in Yerevan in 2017 precisely because of support for landmine clearance initiatives. Following the closure of the OSCE office in Tbilisi in 2008 and in Azerbaijan in 2015, this left the organisation with no effective presence on the ground in the entire region.
The full opinion piece can be read online here.
