Over 450 unexploded ordnances neutralized in October
By Rashid Shirinov
Azerbaijan’s National Agency for Mine Action (ANAMA) has announced its report for October. The Agency cleared a total of 1,223,059 square meters of the country’s territory during the month.
ANAMA informed Trend on November 7 that its staff discovered and neutralized 456 unexploded ammunition and three anti-personnel mines last month. The demining operations involved 490 sappers and 126 member of the administrative staff, as well as six cars on mechanical demining and 34 dogs.
Demining operations were conducted in Absheron, Agjabadi, Agdam, Agstafa, Fuzuli, Gazakh, Lankaran,Tartar and Salyan regions, as well as in the cities of Ganja, Sumgayit and the Guzdek settlement in Garadagh district of Baku.
In general, ANAMA cleared a total of 389,603,952 square meters of Azerbaijan’s territory, discovered and defused 752,702 pieces of unexploded ordnance during 10 years 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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