Clearing the Killing Fields: Landmines & UXO in Nagorno Karabakh

One of the issues I’ve concentrated on since 2001 has been the work of the HALO Trust in clearing the area in and around the self-declared Republic of Nagorno Karabakh of landmines. Since then, the issue has become more and more important as villagers need more agricultural land to farm and as some refugees and vulnerable families from Armenia start to inhabit deserted villages often surrounded by minefields laid by militia rather than the army.

Usually, in such cases, no maps highlighting the existence of minefields exist and there is also the additional danger of unexploded ordnance (UXO). That was the subject for one of the first articles I wrote on the problem for The Armenian Weekly and Gemini News Service seven years ago.

Fifty kilometers north of Stepanakert, the wreckage of an Azerbaijani Mil-Mi 24 Hind B lies strewn across wet and muddy farmland. Armenian forces shot down the helicopter several years earlier, and local residents have since sold much of the rusting, metal carcass as scrap. Ammunition, and the huge, main gun, still cocked and ready to fire, remains however, alongside a rocket pod containing nineteen missiles.

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Simon Porter, a former officer in the British Army, cut his teeth with the HALO Trust in Kosovo and Abkhazia, and has coordinated efforts to dispose of unexploded ordnance in the enclave for over a year. After arriving in 1995 to assist the local authorities, the charity left eighteen months later before returning in February last year. It discovered that progress had been frustrated by the huge turnover in the mainly conscript army.

While the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan may have been put on hold since the ceasefire agreement signed in May 1994, shifts in the front line during three years of fighting have left the entire territory laden with landmines and discarded ammunition. At least twenty-five thousand died in the conflict, but many others still fall victim to accidents involving unexploded ordnance and landmines.

“There are somewhere between thirty and fifty casualties a year,” explains Porter, “and sixty percent of all fatalities and injuries are caused by UXO; items that have been fired but which have failed to detonate. While the military concerns itself with mine clearance, they are ill equipped to deal with the scale of the problem, and the government is eager for HALO to concentrate on mine clearance instead. However, to do so, we would effectively have to start from scratch.”

Since then it’s been both encouraging and interesting to watch the HALO Trust expand its activities. In lieu of others covering their work at that time, it was also satisfying to see my articles referenced by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines in their 2002 and 2003 Landmine Monitor report. This was especially the case given the fact that HALO Trust had started to concentrate more on landmine clearance activities as I reported in an article for Transitions Online.

GYULABLY, Azerbaijan - A few kilometers from the border of the officially unrecognized Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, a shepherd sits with his grazing cattle in the lush pastures of Armenian-controlled Azerbaijan. The scene could grace any postcard from the scenic Caucasus, but the twisted carcasses of rusting vehicles along the roadside tell a different story.

The shepherd is sitting in a minefield.

A blast resonates in the distance as a newly discovered, booby-trapped TM-57 anti-tank mine is detonated, but it doesn’t seem to rattle the shepherd or his herd. Along the road, a mine-clearing team from the HALO Trust has already uncovered 17 anti-personnel and three anti-tank mines. Armen Harutyunyan, assistant operations manager for the British charity, says that as many as 200 mines still remain in an area covering just 500 square meters.

Eight years have passed since an armistice brought peace to Nagorno-Karabakh, the largely Armenian-populated territory in Azerbaijan that demanded reunification with Armenia, sparking a war that claimed more than 25,000 lives. Since the 1994 cease-fire, however, the HALO Trust estimates that incidents with landmines and unexploded ordinance (UXO) have caused more than 900 deaths and injuries.

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Although the HALO Trust initially started work in Karabakh in 1995, it wasn’t until five years later that it started to clear the disputed territory of UXO. Delayed by the need to map out locations, the charity finally started the work of clearing mines in late 2001 after international donor organizations such as USAID provided financial support.

Moreover, the organization has really moved on and in 2006 was clearing mines in the area situated between Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh and currently under Armenian control. That was briefly mentioned in my article on the territory now known by some as Kashatagh for the Institute for War & Peace Reporting.

The local residents of Suarassy seem oblivious to the hidden danger as they herd cattle down a road known to have been mined during the Armenian-Azerbaijani war of the early Nineties. Despite the mangled military lorry rusting in a ditch to one side, none of their cows have so far detonated seven anti-tank mines still believed to be buried underneath, so they reckon the road is safe.

Less than a metre away is forest and grazing land laden with at least 900 anti-personnel landmines. Yura Sharamanian, operations officer for the HALO Trust, compares the minefield to Cambodia and says that the British de-mining charity considers Lachin to be the most mine-infested region in Karabakh and surrounding regions, which were fought over during the 1991-4 war.

Which brings me to the main point of this post. Landmines and unexploded ordnance are a huge problem in and around Nagorno Karabakh, including on the border with Armenia, and even if casualties are relatively low compared to other war-torn countries they can only increase as populations eventually return or farmers need to reclaim new agricultural land or pastures. I was therefore delighted when Daniel Ohanian contacted me regarding use of some of my photos to help raise funds for the HALO Trust’s work in Karabakh.

If you’re interested in finding out more, check out the Demine Artsakh Facebook group. As someone who has accompanied HALO Trust into the field I can definitely recommend them as a cause worth supporting.

Demine Artsakh
The war has stopped, but the deathtoll hasn’t.

There will apparently be some fundraising events online and in person so if you want to help rid Karabakh of landmines, that would be a good place to start. Whenever I receive details of such events I’ll post a link. Meanwhile, there’s more coverage of landmines and UXO in Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh on my old blog and a Macromedia Flash presentation of a day in the life of the HALO Trust on my main site.

More information on the HALO Trust’s work in Nagorno Karabakh can also be found on their web site.

HALO is the only mineclearance organization operating in Nagorno Karabakh, and development, reconstruction, resettlement, and other humanitarian aid is dependent on the continuation of mineclearance. Continuation of mineclearance is also essential to reduce the number of accidents caused by mines and UXO. HALO believes that with a 50% expansion of the programme, most mines and ERW will be cleared from Nagorno Karabakh, and the mine impact free status will be reached within the next five to six years. However, this is largely dependent on the availability and provision of funds by various donors.

Photos: Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2002-6