Nearly 700 explosives found at firing ranges
The Defence Force’s ongoing clearance of firing ranges used by New Zealand soldiers in Afghanistan has dug up nearly 700 unexploded ordnance and war remnants, of which 11 per cent were possibly left behind by Kiwi troops.
The cache of mostly Russian explosives has been retrieved by an organisation hired by the Defence Force to clean up the ranges in Bamyan province.
Stuff Circuit’s documentary in 2019, Life + Limb, revealed 17 Afghan people were killed in nine separate incidents connected by the United Nations to the firing ranges used by New Zealand soldiers to train in Bamyan. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in November 2019 asked the Defence Force to urgently clear the ranges. A year on, a briefing to Defence Minister Peeni Henare shows the clearance project has run ahead of schedule and will soon resume after being suspended for Afghanistan’s harsh winter.
The Organisation for Mine clearance and Afghan Rehabilitation (OMAR), hired by the Defence Force to clear the ranges, has since June 2020 found and destroyed 684 unexploded ordnances or explosive ‘‘remnants of war’’. Of these, 490 were deemed of Russian origin, 171 were of a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) military origin (a figure which includes the possible New Zealand ordnances), 20 found were of Chinese origin, and three were Iranian.
Of the Nato ordnance, 72 unexploded ordnances or explosive remnants were considered to be possibly left behind by New Zealand’s Provincial Reconstruction Team that had been operating in Bamyan – 11 per cent of the total.
The majority, 72 per cent, were Russian.
During the 1980s, Soviet Union troops fought in Afghanistan.
Ardern and the Defence Force both highlighted the possibility that explosives left on the ranges could be of Russian origin back in 2019.
That assertion grated with the Russian Government. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the ‘‘murder’’ of seven children was ‘‘a result of wrongdoings of NZ military who did not de-mine in the proper way the shooting ranges after using them’’.
The Defence Force briefing, obtained under the Official Information Act, said that despite Covid-19 delaying the start of the clearance effort, OMAR was now ahead of schedule. Work on four of the five ranges to be cleared was 39 per cent complete as of October 31, 2020, ahead of the expected 32 per cent.
The clearance of the fifth range was yet to begin. Stuff Circuit reported 39 square kilometres remained dangerous, something the Defence Force had been aware of. Ardern was first briefed on the issue in 2018.
The clearance of the ranges will be one of New Zealand’s last connections to Afghanistan, after the last six Defence Force soldiers returned home in March, ending a 20-year deployment.