Belgium helps UNMAS continue supporting operations in Iraq
A person clearing an area contaminated with landmines. Photo: UNMAS
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – The Belgian government once again contributed about $802,000 to the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) in Iraq in support of essential mine action operations.
Delivering effective and sustainable explosive hazard management assistance as well as offering technical and advisory support to the national mine response authorities are among the activities that will take place, according to a statement released by the UNMAS.
For the sixth year in a row, Belgium has contributed about $6 million to the UNMAS.
Civilians’ lives are still in danger in several governorates of Iraq due to explosive ordnance contamination, which includes improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in areas that have been freed from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Iraq has 2,942 square kilometers of documented polluted sites as of July 2023.
In addition to facilitating the safe return of internally displaced people, the Belgian contribution will facilitate the removal of hazardous ordnance from regions freed from ISIS and will allow reconstruction work to proceed.
Iraq is the world’s most contaminated country with landmines, partly due to the mines laid by the ISIS group to defend the territory it once controlled over Iraq and Syria, according to Reuters.
Iraq was already heavily contaminated because of the 2003 invasion by the US-led coalition, the 1991 Gulf War, and the 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq war.
The Iraqi Minister of Environment, Nizar Amidi, announced in August that 59 percent of the areas contaminated with mines have been cleared.
Amidi confirmed that Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani prioritizes issues related to the environment, adding that sufficient funds have been allocated in the federal budget to clear areas planted with landmines, according to the state news agency (INA).
“Iraq has cleared 59 percent of the areas contaminated with mines, and the remaining 41 percent represent more than 2,000 square kilometers,” Amidi said.
Last March, Amidi stressed the seriousness of the ministry, particularly the Directorate for Mine Action (DMA), to declare Iraq free of mines by 2028, in accordance with Iraq’s obligations towards the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, known informally as the Ottawa Treaty.
In October 2022, two Iraqi members of a team working for the UNMAS were killed and a third was injured in an incident at an explosive ordnance clearance site at Shatt Al-Arab near the city of Basra.