Mine clearance in Tajikistan
In accordance with the Article 5 of the Ottawa Convention, the Republic of Tajikistan has to complete mine clearance by 1 April, 2010.
The Swiss
Foundation for Mine Action (FSD) in Tajikistan is
carrying out humanitarian Mine clearance activities
in the country since 2003 in accordance with the
Memorandum of Understanding signed on 20th of June
2003 with the Government of RT and ratified by the
Parliament on 30 June 203. FSD has started with 2
Survey Teams (ERT), in 2004 it expanded to 2 Manual
Clearance Teams (MAT) and in 2005 FSD had 4 MAT’s
and 4 ERT’s, but couldn’t deploy one ERT due to lack
of funds. One of the main FSD objectives, Capacity
building, was always a key component to the
programme. The services which FSD has been providing
through the programme are mainly training of the
national operational and support staff, equipping
them and actually deploying them in the minefields
prioritised through IMSMA database and tasked by
Tajikistan Mine Action Centre(TMAC).
Swiss Foundation for Mine Action (FSD) Operations –
2007
Since the beginning of the FSD demining
Operations in 2007 the FSD manual demining capacity
expanded from two Mine Action Teams (MAT) to five
and a half MAT’s. With the support of one Mine Detection Dog set mine
clearance activities resumed on 12 March 07 in the
Panj minefields on the border between Tajikistan and
Afghanistan. During the month of May one MAT
deployed to the Rasht valley and one team deployed
to the Rudaki district to conduct clearance
activities. The FSD operations, through the year
expanded to various districts in the Khatlon, Cetral
and GBAO regions and all operations were suspended
during the third week of December 07 for the winter
season.
Manual Clearance:
Before deployment of the original Mine Action teams
FSD has conducted refresher training courses on
manual demining, medical and EOD. In addition FSD
also conducted four Basic deminers’ courses, a FSD
medical course, EOD course, Battle Area Clearance
and a Team Leaders course to new deminers. Despite the fact that
most of the operations took place in high altitude
areas and under sometime difficult conditions, the
MAT’s increased their productivity during 2007. The
number of mines and explosive remnants of war (ERW)
found and destroyed also increased during the nine
months of operations. The teams conducted operations
in 19 minefields and completed 10 minefields during
2007.
Battle Area Clearance (BAC):
Early June FSD started with limited searching
equipment, provided by the TMAC a small BAC team to
deal with the cluster munitions problem identified
in the Garm district. Upon receiving more searching
equipment the search team expanded to a section and
redeployed to the Saghridasht district.
Areas
affected are playgrounds near to schools and since
these munitions has a similar shape as balls
children have the tendency to play with them with
fatal results at times.
The search team found and destroyed a large number
of AO 2.5 (top left) and Shoab (bottom left) sub
munitions in and around villages and in grazing
pastures.
Mine Detecting Dog teams (MDD)
The 6 MDD teams consisting out of 12 dogs as always
contributed a great deal too the overall success and
statistics achieved during operations in 2007.
Apart from the original training on mines and UXO
detection, the Mine Dog Center (MDC) coordinator and
MDC assistant successfully trained a number of the
dogs on sub munitions found in Tajikistan. The dogs
assisted in area reduction / verification activities
during BAC operations with excellent results.
Obedience and box training is an ongoing process to
establish a solid “partnership” between the dog
handler and dog.
Survey team
A joint FSD-TMAC survey pilot project was funded by the OSCE
to reassess previously surveyed areas. Three survey
team leaders were trained and they deployed to the
GBAO region. The team successfully resurveyed and
reduced a large quantity of square meters in
previously surveyed Suspected Hazardous Areas the
districts of Rushan, Vanj and Darvos.The local
authorities in the affected communities were
extremely helpful and rendered valuable assistance
to the survey team.
See
the FSD annual report, 2008.
Download the PDF file of
annual report 2007.
