Barran Press
SANAA, Yemen - May 21, 2024 - In a significant development, the Danish Demining Group (DDG) became the first international organization to conduct a mine clearance operation in Yemen in nine years. The operation, carried out today in the Thobani area of Al Mokha district, Taiz Governorate, focused on the safe destruction of "a quantity of explosives and mines."
The destruction process was overseen by local and military officials, alongside an international team led by Deputy UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen, Diego Zorrilla. "Our visit aims to witness the destruction of remnants of war and assess the scale and type of these explosives that continue to endanger and claim civilian lives," Zorrilla remarked.
Greg Caffrey, Director of Operations at DDG, revealed that the explosives were collected from various locations in Al Mokha and neighboring Mawza district, and their disposal involved "the participation of specialized military engineers."
Local authorities lauded DDG's efforts, particularly their role in removing and destroying explosives allegedly planted by the internationally designated terrorist group, the Houthis. The Al Mokha district director highlighted the devastating impact of these explosives, stating they have caused "numerous casualties among innocent civilians, especially women and children." He emphasized the local authority's commitment to facilitating DDG's work and assisting in the removal of remaining Houthi mines and explosives.
This operation marks a critical step towards addressing the long-standing threat posed by landmines in Yemen's war-torn landscape. The DDG's involvement paves the way for further international collaboration in mitigating the humanitarian crisis and ensuring the safety of Yemeni civilians.
This is the first announced participation of an international organization in mine clearance in Yemen. At the same time, the Saudi project “Masam” is responsible for mine clearance in Yemen. At the same time, the United Nations Development Fund is responsible for distributing funds and supervising mine-related activities as it is the only international body supervising this file.
According to Masam, since the start of the project’s work in Yemen until now, its engineering teams have been able to carry out 201 central mine destruction and detonation operations in several Yemeni governorates. It was also able to remove 442,077 mines, unexploded ordnance, and explosive devices from the start of the project until May 17 of this year.
In early April, the Director General of the Saudi Project to Clear Yemeni Territories of Mines (Masam), Osama Al-Qosaibi, informed the United Nations of “international failure towards the mine disaster in Yemen, and the failure to move seriously to contribute to their removal, or to pressure the Houthis to hand over the maps per to the rules of international law.”
Last February, Al-Qosaibi accused international organizations and agencies working in the field of mines (which he did not name) of “ignoring the efforts made by the project despite the support the project provided to those organizations,” which he described as “entities.”
“Al-Qosaibi,” said in a blog post on his account in “X”, monitored by “Barran Press”, that “some international organizations and agencies concerned with working against mines in Yemen cannot prevent themselves from ignoring the pioneering and most important role that the Masam Project plays in working against mines.” “.
He added: “Those agencies and organizations are biased and only mention some small players in Yemen and call them “major players.” However, if we take into account the work they are doing collectively, they do not even come close to Masam’s achievements.”
Human rights and international estimates indicate that Yemen is currently planted with about two million mines and explosive devices, while international reports say that Yemen is the largest mined country in the world since World War II.
Human rights and international reports accuse the Houthi group, which is internationally classified as a terrorist group, of “exclusively producing mines and planting them on Yemeni territory, in addition to harnessing international support allocated to combating mines to enhance its capabilities in producing mines.”