Mine survey on Uzbek border completed

The border of Takikistan and Uzbekistan is a dangerous place. Mines have claimed the lives of scores of local residents and similar numbers have been injured in recent years. Now a team of deminers have completed a mine risk assessment of the Uzbek border region as a prelude to demining the area. "We have completed a mine hazard assessment of the Tajik-Uzbek border this month," Parviz Mavlonkulov, an operations coordinator with the Tajik Mine Action Centre (TMAC), said from the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, on Tuesday. "The data and information that we have gathered during the survey are now being analysed and the final findings are yet to be announced," Mavlonkulov added. But preliminary findings suggest that the most dangerous border areas were found in the northern Sogd province, particularly the districts of Isfara, Asht and Pyanjikent. "Those are the areas where the number of mine victims have been the highest," the Tajik demining official explained, adding that around 50 high risk sites had been identified based on interviews with local authorities and inhabitants on casualties or damage caused by landmines on the ground. In order to have a complete picture of the situation including the areas mined and approximate number of mines laid, permission was required from the Uzbek side of the border. "The negotiations on the issue are still underway on the inter-governmental level," Mavlonkulov maintained. According to TMAC, at least 73 people have been killed and many more injured by landmines on the Uzbek border since 1999, when the Uzbek security forces mined its borders with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to stave off incursions by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a terrorist organisation listed as such by the US State Department. Over the past 13 years, 455 people, 239 of whom have been killed and 226 have become disabled, have fallen victim to mines in Tajikistan. "The Uzbek authorities have not provided us with any information on minefields in the border areas to date, no maps and plans, while the borders are not demarcated. The local population in border areas relies on agriculture, livestock grazing, firewood gathering. They enter minefields being unaware of the risk and are blown up," Mavlonkulov noted. A local project is now underway in the area to tackle the problem and warning signs are being erected in the most vulnerable border areas of Sogd province, alerting local residents to the risk of mines, he said, noting that the project has almost been finalised. There are no exact figures on the extent of the landmine problem in Tajikistan but according to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), some 2,586 sq km - an area the size of Luxembourg - is mined. The number of deaths through mine-related accidents is estimated to be more than 30 a year. According to the most recent report by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), an estimated 16,000 mines, demolition charges and other explosive devices can be found in the landlocked and impoverished nation, requiring the demining of nearly 2,500 sq km of agricultural land and more than 500 sq km of roads and paths. Most of the mines were laid during the country's bloody five year civil war that ended in 1997 but they can also be found along its borders with neighbouring Afghanistan and Uzbekistan.