Wars end with ceasefires, declarations, and, at last, with peace agreements. They lie waiting – in fields, on roadsides, in riverbeds, and under the ruins of homes that once stood, ready to attack long after the political conflicts that spawned them are settled. In Azerbaijan, where liberation from occupation lasting for more than thirty years has resulted in one of the most daring reconstruction attempts in the post-Soviet space, the war happening underground has never been declared, and no one has ever won it yet.
The magnitude of the problem is exceptional by any worldwide standard. Around 11,667 square kilometers of Azerbaijani territory, almost 13% of its territory, have been contaminated by landmines and unexploded ordnance. There are more than one million explosive devices buried in Azerbaijani soil.
After the 2020 war, 437 citizens of Azerbaijan became victims of mine and unexploded ordnance accidents: 73 dead and 364 seriously wounded people. Those casualties include deminers, reconstruction workers, journalists, and civilians coming back home to their ancestral lands. In total, more than 3,500 people have been victims of mines since the conflict started in the late 1980s.
This is the latest known information. It was in this context that the 4th International Mine Action Conference was held in Baku this week, attended by experts in mine action, diplomats, UN organisations, the EU, NATO, ASEAN and delegates from China, Israel, Türkiye and a dozen other mine-affected nations. The philosophy behind the conference was carefully thought out and, compared to similar conferences, quite ambitious – it was not a technical conference focused on clearance rates and coverage.
The underlying theme that characterized the sessions during the conference could be summarized concisely. A mine is more than a weapon. Clearing a mine does not immediately mean safety; it means making a precondition for safety.
What comes next is housing, roads, agricultural land, schools, hospitals, jobs, community- involves an entirely different set of steps, investments, and time that demining cannot accomplish on its own. A cleared area is not necessarily farmland. A surveyed road is not an operating village.
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