Balakayati: Kurdistan Region's most affected area by planted mines

A team from the Mine Action Agency of the Kurdistan Region removed 760 planted mines in Simelan sub-district of the Balakayati region of the Kurdistan Region.

Head of the Mine Action Agency, Jabar Mustafa, told PUKmedia that 192 minefields have been registered so far in the Balakayati region, which are close to populated areas, and according to statistics, about 1,000 people became victims of mines planted in the area.

"Three teams were continuing to remove mines within the region until the end of 2021... We had to suspend their work due to financial crisis and lack of vehicles to transport the demining teams," he added, 

Kurdistan Region is one of the regions most affected by landmines and a large remnant of explosives remains in its land due to many bloody wars which constitute a big threat to the people's lives.

Following the 1991 uprising, the Kurdish people along with many foreign organizations in the Kurdistan Region have dismantled and extracted millions of mines. 

In 2004, the Mine Action Agency was established in the Kurdistan Region, which is an institution of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and has made a lot of efforts to clear the land of Kurdistan from mines, but the danger remains in the region.

Eight years of the Iraq-Iran war, the conflicts between the Peshmerga Forces and Saddam Hussein's regime and the ISIS occupation of many areas across the Kurdistan Region borders resulted in the contamination of enormous amounts of land by landmines and explosives, and they require years of hard work to be cleared.



Reported by Hawar Abbas
PUKmedia