Unfortunately, Salwa’s story is just one of many
similarly tragic stories. Between 1962 and 1994,
Yemen witnessed civil wars and revolutions and the
remnants of these conflicts continue to plague
Yemen. Antipersonnel mines, also known generically
as “landmines,” continue to claim the lives of
innocent people, long after the conflicts are over.
They are often strewn without regard for precision,
and as a result, the vast majority of victims are
civilians. Far from being a problem for Yemen alone,
landmines worldwide claim another victim every
twenty minutes. Today, there are 599 different types
of antipersonnel mines listed all over the world. In
Yemen, around 12 different types have been
registered.
One man in particular,
Mansour Al Azi, has made enormous efforts to purge
Yemen’s landscapes of landmines. Al Azi served in
the Yemeni army until his retirement in 1995 and is
now the Director of the Yemen Mine Action Program
(YMAP), Executive Officer for the National Mine
Action Committee (NMAC), as well as the Program
Manager for the United Nations Development Project.
YMAP is responsible for removing all unexploded
antipersonnel mines from Yemen, providing assistance
to landmine victims, and educating the Yemeni
population of the risk of mines.
Fortunately, three years after Salwa’s tragic
accident, professionals from the YMAP came to her
village. They found her confined at home and
proposed that she follow a rehabilitation program
dedicated to antipersonnel mines victims. Now she
moves in a wheelchair that she manages perfectly,
she is an expert in computers, and her skills are
able to help her family. She is no longer a useless
mouth to feed and she has recovered her
self-confidence and has hope for the future. Indeed,
she even says that her accident changed her life in
a good way as now she has a job and responsibilities
that she would never had dreamed of before the
terrible event.
Al Azi
has not been the only one to mobilize. Mrs. Rachida
Al Hamdani, current head of the National Women
Committee, General Gasem Al Shebaini, and General
Hussein Al Abdulghani combined efforts to create an
organization to remove antipersonnel mines from
Yemen as well as to educate the population about
these dangerous weapons. In 1995, they outlined a
de-mining plan in Yemen, a plan that was quickly
accepted by the Yemeni government. Thanks to the
support of the United Nations, international
organizations, and various donors, the demining plan
was then launched. Two years later, in 1997, when
several countries added significantly to the
worldwide struggle against antipersonnel mines by
signing the Ottawa Convention, Yemen was amongst the
first nations to adopt this Convention. The main
objective of this international treaty is to ban the
use, the stockpiling, the production, and the
transfer of antipersonnel mines. As Yemen was
already in the process of conducting different
actions in this field, they had all the necessary
plans already drawn up in order to implement the
Ottawa Convention.
The
YMAP has sent soldiers, mine dog teams, and
specialists all over Yemen to conduct different
surveys and to define the scale of the landmine
problem. It quickly became apparent that nearly the
entire country was infected, particularly the
country’s northern regions, the Hadhramaut, and in
and around Aden. They determined 1,200 areas which
they called “communities” that were infected by
mines. Today, thanks to the demining program, the
number has been reduced to 592 infected communities
with more than 1,300 people committed to the YMAP.
The project consists of eight demining companies,
three mine detection dog groups, twelve mine dog
teams, twelve survey teams, five quality insurance
teams, fourteen unexploded ordnance teams, and five
independent platoons. Each team has a particular
function and can intervene in a precise moment of
the process.
YMAP mainly relies on three pillars which are all of
equal importance: clearance, victim assistance, and
mine risk education.
CLEARANCE
The
clearance of landmines is without a doubt the most
difficult step in terms of human mobilization and
physical endurance. It can last months, depending on
the area to clear.
One of
the most important parts of clearing an area of
antipersonnel mines is the communication with the
local population, insuring that the population
understands the safety rules while the team is
working so as not to pose further hazards to the
local residents.
After
this critical step, the work of the survey and mine
dog-teams begins. The objective is to determine the
zone infected as well as the precise location of
individual mines in order to lead the clearance
teams to their exact locations.
One of
the most useful constituents of the YMAP is the
Yemen Mine Dog Center. The Mine Dog Center was
created in 2002 in order to give technical support
to the Mine Action Program, as a dog’s sense of
smell is roughly one million times more accurate
than that of humans. Initially located in Aden, the
Yemen Mine Dog Center was moved to Sana’a where the
weather is more appropriate for the dogs. The dogs
were originally imported from Afghanistan, where a
similar program is running, as well as from Germany.
German trainers were sent to teach Yemenis how to
train dogs and some Yemeni trainers were also sent
to Afghanistan to learn from local experts. Now, the
dog center is self-sufficient – its trainers have
themselves become experts, and a breeding program
has been established.
Dogs
are not the only ones to find mines; in some
environments, such as those with thick vegetation or
a lot of sand and wind, humans can do a better job.
Organizing themselves in lines, giving each soldier
a precise zone to work on, team members wear
protective equipment such as a helmet and a
protective vest while they are working with mine
detectors. Nevertheless, some mine-clearing experts
have already paid the heavy price of mine clearing
with their own lives. These casualties show that no
amount of precautions can ever be enough when
clearing mines. Indeed, the most that the Mine
Action Program can guarantee is that an area is
99.6% clear of mines.
VICTIM
ASSISTANCE UNIT
The
clearance work would be incomplete if the YMAP did
not also assist the victims of landmines.
While
they are conducting clearance projects, some teams
from the YMAP visit different areas to register the
victims of antipersonnel mines and to categorize
their needs. Phase one of victim assistance is
registration, phase two is medical assistance where
doctors identify what the patient needs, which leads
to phase three. This consists of surgical operations
and/or being fitted for artificial limbs. Finally,
the last and longest phase commences:
rehabilitation. This is arguably the most important
phase in the process, as it is the capstone of the
whole process of victim assistance. After having
repaired the physical injuries, rehabilitation aims
at repairing the psychological scars. Victims are
sent to a training center where they can learn a
skill to reintegrate into society. During this
phase, they are always looked after personally by
specialists to be sure that the rehabilitation
process is efficient for them.
MINE
RISK EDUCATION
The
aim of the Mine Risk Education team is to educate
people about landmines before they become the next
landmine victim. This can prove to be a sizable task
considering most people know very little about
landmines.
Consequently, as director of YMAP, one of the first
concerns of Al Azi was to elaborate a communication
plan which could reach the largest number of people.
An advertising campaign was initiated and conducted
via radio and television, including a series of
short movies and commercials. The message is clear
and simple: do not touch a landmine, do not try to
burn it, do not run on a mine field, and other such
basic information.
The
Mine Risk Education team also ventures out into the
countryside in order to make sure that they are
reaching rural people. Using a technique known as
“proximity communication,” the team reaches out to
villages and organizes workshops regarding
landmines. In the cities, the team goes to schools,
universities, and local police enforcement agencies,
warning children as well as adults about the dangers
of landmines. In some cases, they even visit women
and girls who spend most of their lives in their
homes but who are also potential victims of
antipersonnel mines when they go on the fields to
get water or to look after the sheep.
Today, many fields still remain
to be cleared from antipersonnel mines in Yemen, and
years of work lie ahead of the YMAC. However, the
program has been extremely successful thus far.
205,450 antipersonnel mines and unexploded devices
have been taken out of Yemeni fields since the
beginning of the program. In 2000, there were on
average twenty-seven landmine casualties in Yemen
each month. Since then, this amount has been lowered
to one hundred and thirty-six casualties in eight
years. The success of the YMAC has not gone
unnoticed, with Mr. Azi developing different mine
action programs in various countries, such as Sudan,
Lebanon, and Mauritania. Seven countries, among them
Iraq, have also sent personnel to be trained in
Yemen so as to learn from the Yemeni experience and
expertise.
