Riyadh pledges $2m for Yemen demining drive

Saudi Arabia has granted $2 million as financial support for the demining project in Yemen.

Mohammad bin Mirdas Al Qahtani, the Saudi Ambassador to Sanaa, met Yemeni Prime Minister, Abdul Qader Bajammal here on Monday and handed him over a letter from the Saudi Second Deputy Premier and Minister of Defence and Aviation, Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz.

He pledged to provide $1 million for the Mine Action Programme (MAP), while the rest of the amount has been dedicated to enhance the demining efforts throughout the country in separate programmes.

Landmines planted in the Yemeni mountains and valleys kill or injure an average of five civilians per month, experts and officials confirmed. A total of 231 people became mine victims over the last two years as registered by the Mine Action Programme (MAP).

The MAP, which is mainly financed by the American government, recorded 5,279 victims, with 2,900 of them dead, and the remaining living with lasting disabilities, since it started working in 1998. Mine victims include women, children, shepherds, and travelers.

More than one million mines were planted in Yemen during the civil wars it witnessed since 1962 until 1994.

Mansoor Al Ezzi, Executive Director of the Mine Action Centre and Chairman of the International Committee for Mines Technology, told Gulf News in an exclusive interview, that about 50,000 anti-personnel mines were removed since they started the demining operation in 1998.

He said Yemen has finished destroying the stock piled anti-personnel mines. "Yemen is the first country in the region which has finished destroying the stock piled anti-personnel mines, according to the Ottawa convention," Al Ezzi said.

"We destroyed the last stock piled quantity on April 27 this year in the presence of the prime minister, Abdul Qader Bajammal."

According to the information of the MAP, a total of 150,000 anti-personnel mines were planted during the civil war in the summer of 1994 when the south tried to secede from the north after they proclaimed unity in 1990.

More than one million landmines were planted in 1979 in the borderline between the south and the north during the tensions and conflicts, which preceded the unity. Land mines were planted over an estimated area of 922 million square metres during the period from 1962-1994.

"So far we have determined 62 mine fields in eight governorates: Aden, Hudhrmout, Addale, Sanaa, Abyan, Al Baidha, Lahj and Haja, and we have cleaned an area of five million and 250 thousand square metres from mines," Al Ezzi stressed.