Iraq launches strategy for mine action
A land mine clearance crew searches for unexploded ordnance in a field in Radhwaniya district, west of Baghdad. Photo: Reuters
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – According to international and local statistics and reports, Iraq is classified as the most contaminated country with mines and unexploded ordnance, which claim many Iraqi lives or cause them permanent disabilities and are spread as a result of the wars Iraq has gone through over the past decades.
To address the issues, the Supreme National Committee for Mine Action approved the strategy of the National Mine Action Service for the years 2023–2028.
Last March, the Iraqi Minister of Environment, Nizar Amidi, while chairing a meeting of the Supreme National Committee for Mine Action, 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.
The Director General of DMA, Bakir Sahib Ahmed, explained that the committee had voted on a number of decisions included in the agenda of the meeting.
Ahmed added that these decisions would serve the national mine action program in general and support ministries and other bodies.
Iraq is the world’s most contaminated country with landmines, partly due to the mines laid by ISIS terrorists to defend the territory it once controlled over Iraq and Syria, according to Reuters.
Iraq was already heavily contaminated as a result of the 2003 invasion by the U.S.-led coalition, the 1991 Gulf War, and the 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq war, Reuters added.