Azernews.Az

By Rashid Shirinov

Azerbaijan National Agency for Mine Action (ANAMA) continues operations on mine cleaning in the Jojug Marjanli village.

The village was liberated by the Azerbaijani Armed Forces from the Armenian occupation in April 2016.

On February 26, ANAMA held an operation on cleaning a territory of 36,835 square meters of Jojug Marjanli. The Agency discovered 482 fragments of exploded ordnance, one unexploded part of a missile engine PQ-7, two anti-personnel mines OZM-72, two anti-tank mines TM-57, and 24 MVZ-57 fuses of anti-tank mines.

In general, a territory of 653,059 square meters and 89 houses were cleared by ANAMA since the beginning of operations in Jojug Marjanli. Following ANAMA's demining operations, the work on construction of new houses will be launched in the liberated village.

ANAMA was established in 1998 for planning and coordination, management and monitoring of mine action related activities all over the country.

ANAMA cleared more than 393,832,826 square meters of Azerbaijan’s territory, discovered and defused over 754,010 pieces of unexploded ordnance since the beginning of its activity. Most of the unexploded ordnance is the result of Armenian aggression.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.

Armenia still controls fifth part of Azerbaijan's territory and rejects implementing four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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