A five-day OSCE regional course, Introduction to Humanitarian Mine Action Systems, concluded in Almaty, Kazakhstan on April 5.
The course, jointly organized by Kazakhstan’s Defense Ministry, the OSCE Programme Office in Nur-Sultan and the OSCE Programme Office in Dushanbe, reportedly gathered 31 military and civilian experts from Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
According to the OSCE Programme Office in Dushanbe, the event provided a platform to enhance awareness of and skills for the safe, effective and efficient establishment of Humanitarian Mine Action Systems.
The theoretical part of the training is delivered at Kazakhstan’s Partnership for Peace Training Center (KAZCENT) in Almaty, while practical exercises were conducted at the Demining Centre of Kazakhstan’s Defense Ministry in Kapshagay on 4 April 2019.
During the event, experts from the United States Army Central Command, the United States Air Forces Central Command, KAZCENT, the Demining Center of Kazakhstan’s Defense Ministry, the Croatian Mine Action Center, the Norwegian People’s Aid Tajikistan, the OSCE Project Coordinator in Ukraine and the OSCE Programme Office in Dushanbe shared experiences and best practices.
The course is part of the OSCE’s long-term support for the development of a co-operation mechanism among states in Central Asia to address concerns and challenges stemming from the disposal of explosive hazards
It is to be noted that residents of rural areas of Tajikistan remain at the mercy of landmines that are a legacy of the country’s five-year disastrous civil war in the 1990s.
According to data from the Tajik Mine Action Centre (TMAC), 374 Tajik nationals were killed and 485 others were wounded by landmines laid during the civil war and laid by the Uzbek authorities along the Tajik-Uzbek border in the late 1990s.
Two members of Tajik demining teams were reportedly killed and 20 others were wounded wile demining the anti-personnel landmines.
