DUSHANBE, May 27, 2016, Asia-Plus – Deputies of the Majlisi Namoyandagon (Tajikistan’s lower chamber of parliament) today unanimously seconded a draft law on humanitarian demining activity worked out by the country’s government.
Presenting the bill, Muhabbat Ibrohimzoda, Director of the Mine Action Center of Tajikistan, noted that 374 Tajik nationals have been killed and 485 others have been injured in landmine explosions over the past twenty years.
According to him, two Tajik combat engineers were killed and twenty other were injured during demining operations.
“To-date, 16.3 square kilometers of the mine-strewn areas have been cleared in Tajikistan,” Ibrohimzoda noted.
In Tajikistan, minefields mostly remain in districts subordinate to the center (Rasht Valley) and along the Tajik-Afghan border, he added. These mine-strewn areas are a legacy of the country’s disastrous civil war in the Nineties
Asked about clearing the areas along the Tajik-Uzbek border, Ibrohimzoda noted that that problem would be solved only after demarcation and delimitation of the dispute stretches of the Tajik-Uzbek border.
He stressed that Uzbekistan has not yet signed the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention (Ottawa Convention).
We will recall that the Uzbek authorities laid landmines along the Uzbek-Tajik border in 2000. The action was reportedly taken to stave off incursions by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). To date, no one Uzbek militant has been blown up by these mines, while casualties among the civilian Tajik population have increased. Most of the victims were women and children who were gathering firewood along the border as well as shepherds pasturing cattle in the areas. Almost all who have survived have become disabled for life.
Tajikistan signed the Convention on the Prohibition on the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Antipersonnel Mines and on their Destruction (the Ottawa Convention) in 2000. All signatory states undertook to ensure the destruction of all anti-personnel land mines they possess, as soon as possible but no later than 10 years after signing the convention.
Tajikistan’s Red Crescent Society (RCS) launched a special program, entitled Raising Awareness of Mines and Unexploded Ordnance, in January 2002. The goal was to cut the number of casualties by teaching local people in affected areas some rules of safe conduct. Specialists say fewer people have stepped on mines since the project was launched.
