Afghan province is landmine-free

About 60,000 people from Herat, many returning refugees, had been housed in a new city district

Afghanistan’s deadliest province for landmines has been declared free of the explosive devices after a decade-long clearance effort, the demining group HALO Trust said yesterday.

The organisation said it had cleared more than 600 minefields in Afghanistan’s western province of Herat, opening up 40 million square metres, or 15.5 square miles, of farmland.

About 60,000 people, many returning refugees, had been housed in a new city district built on cleared land, HALO said.

HALO spokesman Paul McCann said nearly 80 per cent of the country’s minefields had been cleared in the past three decades.

“Unfortunately, there are areas where, for security reasons, it’s not possible for HALO Trust to carry out its operations,” McCann told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Scores killed

An average of 125 people a year were killed or injured by mines in Herat until clearance began in 2008, according to Britain’s foreign aid department, which funded the effort.

Britain-based HALO said mine removal has boosted More Afghan civilians are being deliberately targeted by militant attacks and suicide blasts, new UN figures published yesterday show, as the Taliban and the Daesh group ramp up their assaults on urban areas.

The number of civilians killed or wounded across the country dipped by a welcome nine per cent overall in 2017, the report by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) showed, with 10,453 total civilian casualties including 3,438 deaths and 7,015 wounded.

But as the Taliban and the Daesh group have come under more pressure they have carried out indiscriminate assaults in cities, with casualties from suicide bombings and attacks jumping by 17 per cent. Nearly 2,300 civilians were killed or wounded in suicide bombings and attacks last year. Herat’s economic prospects, as people can now access prime agricultural land in a region where three quarters of residents are rural.

“The news on Herat is certainly welcome and a credit to those who dedicated their efforts this past decade to removing these indiscriminate weapons,” said Patricia Gossman, senior Afghanistan researcher with Human Rights Watch (HRW).