ZCZC
BFF-21
UKRAINE-RUSSIA-MINES-CONFLICT,SCENE
Mine-ridden Ukrainian village faces deadly threat
CHUGYNKA, Ukraine, Dec 28, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Outside the picturesque
Ukrainian village of Chugynka, dozens of men and women in bulletproof vests
kneel down and explore every inch of ground.
The faded grass lies in the middle of a war zone that has become one of the
most mine-riddled areas in the world over the past few years.
“The whole village used to use the field” for making hay and grazing cows,
said Anatoliy Radchenko, a former entrepreneur who now leads the group of
around 30 face-masked workers.
“We are doing this mine clearing for them, so that one day we can say —
guys, you can use it, everything is fine here now.”
The pine-fringed village’s former pasture is cordoned off and marked by
signs reading “Danger, mines” in English.
“For someone driving a tractor there’s always the risk of a mine
exploding,” says Andriy, a 32-year-old farmer who lives in Chugynka with his
family and earns his living from producing grain.
“But you have to work anyway,” he sighs, after telling how a farmer he
knows was injured during the harvest this year.
Chugynka is just 15 miles (25 kilometres) west of the frontline in a war
between Ukraine government forces and Russian-backed separatists.
The conflict has claimed more than 10,000 lives since it broke out in 2014
following a pro-Europe uprising in Kiev and Moscow’s annexation of the
Crimean peninsula.
Russia denies claims it is funnelling troops and arms across the border to
fuel the conflict, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Meanwhile, the UN says that more than 1,600 civilians have been killed or
wounded by mines during the war.
That includes children — three of whom died while another was injured in
the area in September.
A further two million Ukrainians, including 220,000 children, remain at
risk.
– Dangerous and slow –
Equipped with metal detectors, the group near Chugynka hunt for mines,
marking the spot where they find one with a small flag.
They immediately report the find to emergency services that can neutralise
the threat.
The Ukrainian de-mining team was formed in 2016 and is funded by The Swiss
Foundation for Mine Action (FSD).
The work is dangerous and slow, however. In six weeks, the team has
covered less than five percent of the 74,000-square metre (18-acre) area.
Two other humanitarian organisations, The HALO Trust and Danish Demining
Group work in mine clearance in Ukraine. But the trio only work in areas of
the country controlled by Kiev.
On the other side of the frontline, in the so-called Lugansk and Donetsk
People’s Republics, the problem is the same.
Separatist authorities there carry out mine clearance operations
themselves, without revealing the size of the affected areas.
– ‘Some blame the parents’ –
The Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe estimated in a
report last week that 7,000 square kilometres are mined in Eastern Ukraine.
That makes it “one of the most densely mined areas in the world,” the OSCE
says.
Alexander Hug, then deputy head of the OSCE ceasefire monitoring operation
in Ukraine, told AFP a few months ago that both sides continued to set mines
without marking them.
This runs counter to 2015 peace agreements that have curbed the overall
violence.
“I think we will suffer for a very long time,” Ivan Prykhodko, the
separatist head of the city of Gorlivka in Donetsk, told AFP.
Recent experience appears to support his prediction.
More than two percent of Bosnia-Hercegovina is still thought to be
affected by mines, according to OSCE data from 2017, even though fighting
ended there more than 20 years earlier.
In Ukraine, military specialists have only been able to confirm 0.6
percent clearance of the total affected area.
As efforts by groups like the FSD continue, landmines’ horrific effects
are felt all too keenly in the country’s east.
“Some believe that parents are guilty of letting boys walk alone, others –
– that children are guilty because they have not noticed the warning sign”,
said Vladimir Tulup, grandfather of the local boy who survived the explosion
in September.
“But they are not to blame, this goddamn war is to blame,” he told AFP.
BSS/AFP/RY/10:30 hrs