The demining project on the Jordanian-Syrian border

Like many other Jordanian women, Hyam decided to take up the job of demining, one of the world’s most dangerous and tedious professions. Not only for the significant income, but particularly for the considerable sense of responsibility towards those who were amputated by mines.

Sulafa al Khatib - Amman, Al-Hayat

Hyam Andali (29 years) stands on a land inhabited by death and danger, surrounded by landmines from every side. With the help of a demining device, she searches for her enemy that is lurking in the sand then returns home after her work in the fields, feeling elated with the victory she just achieved on the battlefield.

Hyam performs her daily demining function within the buffer zone along the northern Jordanian-Syrian border, where thousands of mines were planted for security purposes. These areas pose a great threat to the neighboring inhabitants.

In the words of Hyam, who works as a demining expert with the Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA): “I started to work in mine-clearance for the significant income, until my job became a risky one with a humanitarian purpose: ridding the country from the danger of mine explosions.”

The coffins that came back from those forgotten lands and the suffering endured by those who were amputated produced a sense of challenge in Hyam. Her daily visit to the fields became a routine matter that requires great mental alertness and concentration, which leave no room for any distraction. A member of the first all-female Jordanian demining team, Hyam graduated from a six-week basic training course in mine-clearing organized by NPA. She started working with 9 other female colleagues, competing with men in their job functions.

Project objectives and method of work
“NPA, which is funded by the EU through the UNDP office in Jordan, started working in the 104-kilometer northern buffer zone in November 2007, and found 136,000 mines”, declared the head of the Jordanian National Committee for Demining and Rehabilitation (NCDR), Mohammad Breikat.

Breikat said: “The mines in the northern buffer zone (of a surface area of 10 million square meters) were planted by Jordan in the 1970s in order to put an end to smuggling operations.” He added that “the mine-clearing aims at eliminating the threats they pose on human lives, as their explosions throughout the past decades have left 770 persons either killed or wounded.”

Breikat also said that “the mine-clearing process began in April 2008 under the NCDR’s supervision and in collaboration with the Jordanian Armed Forces, which are involved in burning the mines and offering guidance and counseling. NPA is in charge of executing the demining process through trained military and civilian staff.”

“There is a total of 12 teams working on clearing the fields from mines” according to the demining field coordinator Moussa Al-Suqur, who pointed out that “each team has a leader, a group commander, 10 demining experts, and a mine burner, along with 7 medical support teams that offer advanced first aid services in the case of accidents.”

Al-Suqur explained that “the removal of mines takes place either manually through digging or through metal detectors.” He said that “10 teams follow the manual method, but only after completion of the technical survey that specifies the threats and necessary measures to be taken for mine-clearing, as well as the tasks and mechanisms to be followed. This is in addition to the necessary period of time and number of team members.”

Entering into the mine zone requires at first the opening of a safe route that facilitates the movement of the demining experts. This is one of the public safety procedures that are applied by the teams to limit as much as possible any injuries in case of detonations.”

Just like waging a “battle” requires armed soldiers, field workers need to have the right equipment ready: a protective suit, protective helmets, and protective shoes that are especially designed for treading on minefields.

Al-Suqur pointed that “NPA was able to create job opportunities for around 250 previously unemployed citizens, of whom some used to be militaries in the Royal Engineers Corps (REC) and others were civilians who were pushed to work by the bad living conditions and economic situation.”

He added that “NPA is keen on employing the inhabitants of the neighboring areas of the minefields that are being cleared, as any job opportunity, albeit for specific periods of time, is considered to be one of the project’s positive sub-results.”

The European Union support
According to Al-Suqur, the fields that are being cleared are only delivered to the NCDR after the elimination of the mines is verified. Remote-controlled mining equipment is introduced on the fields, in addition to the use of trained dogs that pick up the smells emanating from them.

Al-Suqur added that “NPA has cleared 6 out of 93 minefields in the northern buffer zone, of which 3 were delivered to the Jordanian Armed Forces and 3 are expected to be delivered after an NCDR team controls the quality of the measures for confirming the mine clearance.”

“A total of 36,622 mines have been removed from these fields, including 24,970 anti-personnel mines and 11,652 anti-tank mines.” Al-Suqur also indicated that “the project is expected to be completed by May 2011.”

The northern zone is considered to be the last main EU-funded demining project after the NCDR completed the demining of other Jordanian lands. The EU had granted an 800 thousand euro funding for the demining of Baqura, which was retrieved from Israel after the peace agreement signature. Twelve fields were demined in cooperation with the Jordanian Armed Forces under the supervision of an NCDR quality control team.

“The REC was able through the skills and rapidity of its men to finish demining the Baqura fields within a maximum period of four months, while the specified period had been 1.5 years. This encouraged the EU Commission to approve increasing the number of fields to 33 in some valley areas, which were demined according to the set budget and timeframe.”

Breikat said that the “demining tasks in some of these fields took place through the NPA, which launched its actions in Jordan in June 2006.”
He added: “The EU Commission continued to fund another project in the north of Jordan (4 million Euros) through the NPA, which was entrusted with the project execution via the UNDP in Amman.”

Despite its various attempts to contact UNDP officials, Al Hayat was not able to obtain information on the outcome of the EU-funded projects that were executed in Jordan.

According to Breikat, “the demined land in the North will be reclaimed. This region contains more than 33 water wells in addition to unexploited agricultural land. Also, the threat it poses to human life will be eliminated.”

The NCDR had begun demining operations in 1993 in the Jordan Valley, where the existence of mines was restricting socio-economic development. Jordan signed the Ottawa Convention in 1998, with an eye on working hard to eliminate all the mines from its territories.