Hussain Abdul-Hussain
Daily Star staff

An intensive land-mine awareness campaign by the National De-mining Office (NDO) appears to be helping to bring down the number of casualties from the deadly devices.
Lieutenant Colonel Taqieddine Tannir, president of the National Committee for Landmines Awareness, said that awareness of land mines was as important as removing the weapons from the ground.
“We already have a total of 784 schools (that teach about the dangers of land mines) in the South and the southern suburbs, with the number of students exceeding 300,000,” he said at a conference held at the Sahel General Hospital in Haret Hreik.
“We also hold land-mine awareness campaigns for our 25,000 annual recruits during their military conscription. Even during a Lebanese League soccer game between Nijmeh
and Hikmeh, we seized the opportunity to inform the 40,000 fans of the dangers of land mines,” he added.
The campaign appears to be working. NDO figures show the number of casualties from land mines and bombs has dropped from 79 in 2000 to only five for the first half of this year.
But the high concentration of mines and unexploded bombs continues to give cause for concern.
“Prior to 1975, all land mines were controlled by the army but after that date, it became difficult to control the some 500,000 land mines scattered across the country,” Tannir said.
The officer said 500,000 land mines were at large, in comparison to Egypt’s 20 million, and added that the latter’s annual injury toll does not top 50 people ­ a number which Lebanon exceeds.
Since Israel withdrew its troops from South Lebanon in May 2000, 25 people have been killed and 154 wounded by land mines and left over bombs.
Tannir maintained the higher figure here was due to the fact that land mines were found in 93 percent of the country, blaming the Jewish state for what he said were the “death instruments” littering the South and the liberated areas.
He also said three of the four army de-mining groups were conducting efforts in the South and the Western Bekaa to rid those areas of land mines.
To this date, the army has cleared 500 minefields from a total of 2,700.
With the $50 million United Arab Emirates-funded Operation Emirates Solidarity de-mining program, Tannir expected that the process of clearing the South of mines would fall over a shorter period.
The UAE has contracted two foreign companies, Zimbabwe-based Minetech and Bactec from the UK, to clear most of the South of mines. The army has pledged to provide necessary support.
Major Wassim Rizk, an explosives expert, displayed different types of land mines and explained the characteristics of each. Rizk also talked about the damage land mines can cause, while pointing out the methods used in mine clearing.
“We can either detect land mines manually or use a de-mining machine,” he said. “Manually, we can cover 6 square meters per hour, but when using the machine, we can clear a kilometer during the same period.”
He added that some Israeli land mines, such as the No. 4 “shoebox” mine, the most common variety found in the South, have plastic covers, making it difficult for the machine to detect.
“For this purpose, we had to import specially trained police dogs from the United States which can detect such devices,” Rizk said.

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