Mine awareness still needed

Mine awareness, especially among the young, is dangerously low in Tajikistan, a country where perhaps hundreds of thousands of the deadly devices litter the land, aid workers say. "We discovered recently that there is a real lack of mine awareness, particularly among the younger generation in mined areas. For example, [among] boys who are out herding cattle in rural areas," International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) head of mission in Tajikistan, Jean-Francois Sonnay, told IRIN in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe. His comment followed a recent case in which a young boy came across a mine, picked it up and took it home with him. Luckily, the mine did not explode. The two areas known to be mined are the Rasht Valley, a former stronghold of the opposition, and the Tajik/Uzbek border. Fear of infiltration by an Islamic movement from Tajikistan prompted Tashkent to mine the area. While there are no exact figures on how many mines have been planted in the country or along its border, estimates run into the hundreds of thousands. The ICRC has only been able to track the number of mine-related accidents through media reports. In 2001 some 40 incidents were reported and at least 15 cases have been reported so far this year. The mines laid along Tajikistan's 1,161 km border with Uzbekistan were costing lives, Sonnay said, yet very little could be done. "There is not much we can do about this in terms of clearance as it needs a political solution. First and foremost is the need for demarcation of the Uzbek/Tajik border," he explained. However, he said there were better possibilities for conducting mine clearance in the Rasht Valley, where there was also a threat of unexploded ordinance, and where some areas which were said to have been cleared had not been. The ICRC has responded with a mine awareness programme following an assessment of the valley and border areas. Six districts in the northern province of Sughd Oblast and a further six districts in the Rasht Valley have been targeted by a programme launched in December 2001. Sonnay said the objective was to raise mine awareness, gather information on the gravity of the situation and to encourage the Tajik ministry of defence to take on the practical task of mine clearance. The ICRC, which has also opened the country's only orthopaedic centre in Dushanbe to treat mine victims, is training volunteers to educate others in areas which are mined. "We are supplying them with posters and leaflets in the local languages to educate local communities," the ICRC's mine awareness coordinator in Dushanbe, Elena Filatova, told IRIN. The volunteers report back to the aid agency on the number of people reached and the number of mine victims they have come across. Said Sonnay: "The important thing for us is to address the problem at a community level as people are not used to the danger of mines here - unlike in Afghanistan - and we need to do this as quickly as possible." Money, however, is also a problem. Sonnay said the Tajik Red Crescent Society, in conjunction with the ICRC, had drafted a plan of action to eventually be implemented by the authorities. But, he added, the government was unable to implement its mine clearance programme until it received enough funding. In the meantime, the ICRC is embarking on some innovative initiatives in areas which have been mined. For example, it recently launched a mine awareness poster competition among school children, and it also plans to erect billboards on main roads.