Two thousand demining jobs up for grabs

Two thousand jobs are being created to help boost mine-clearing operations, a government statement said on 13 April. Those hired would go on training courses before being deployed throughout the country for mine-clearing work.

Half the jobs would go to residents of Basra. The area has an estimated five million landmines, many dating from the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s and the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Each contractor would get a monthly wage of 150,000 Iraqi dinars (about US$125) plus 50,000 Iraqi dinars (about $41) in risk allowances, a government statement said.

“The majority of these landmines are concentrated in the border towns with Iran and Kuwait… That hinders the movement of the residents, many of whom have had legs amputated due to these mines,” said Col Karim Jassim, in charge of the province’s explosives department.

“Clearing operations are almost at a standstill as we don’t have modern demining equipment; we only have the old manually operated equipment which gives a signal when it detects any metal item; this exhausts us as our land is full of shrapnel,” Jassim told IRIN.

“In addition to that, we are preoccupied with dismantling roadside bombs, car bombs, missiles and mortar rounds that we find almost daily in the militants’ caches or in the streets,” he said.

Call for global effort

Marking the third annual International Day of Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action on 4 April, the Iraqi government, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) called for a global effort to help Iraq in its mine-clearance operations.

They said Iraq has one of the greatest concentrations of landmines, unexploded ordnance (UXO) and other explosive remnants of war (ERW) in the world. The mines inflict life-long injuries, deny access to productive land and undermine freedom of movement, including for the delivery of humanitarian relief.

According to the Ministry of Environment, based on statistics released in February, Iraq has some 25 million unexploded mines in 4,000 minefields and there were also about 90 million UXO items.

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