Deminers run heavy risks to carry out urgent work in South Lebanon

Deminers run heavy risks to carry out urgent work in South Lebanon
Despite warnings, farmers `insist on going into the plantations because their livelihoods` depend on it
Source: Daily Star, 11-10-2007
By Nayla Razzouk
HOSH, SOUTH LEBANON: With sweat trickling down his temples, Hossam Mustafa froze as the metal detector sounded in a banana plantation riddled with unexploded bomblets left over from the summer 2006 war with "Israel".
The young deminer treads on dangerous ground as he clears fields and residential areas in South Lebanon of the unexploded cluster bombs dropped by "Israel" during the conflict.
But as he seeks out the deadly crops in the coastal region of Hosh, farmers go about their work in the fields.
"We inform them their safety is at risk, but they insist on going into the plantations because the livelihoods of such poor people depend on the harvest," said Magnus Rundstrom, a Swedish manager for the Mine Advisory Group, a British-based non-governmental organization.
The United Nations says up to 1 million of the estimated 4 million cluster bomblets dropped by "Israel" during the war failed to explode on impact, becoming deadly traps which can detonate at the slightest movement.
At least 37 people have been killed and 217 wounded and maimed by the weapons since the conflict, according to the UN. Two civilians, including a 6-year-old boy, were killed by cluster bombs only last week.
Dalya Farran, spokeswoman for the UN Mine Action Coordination Center overseeing the clearing operations, said that 946 cluster bomb locations cover an estimated area of almost 38 million square meters.
More than 130,000 cluster bombs have been cleared by 69 foreign-led teams of 1,300 experts operating under a program funded by donor countries to clear South Lebanon completely of unexploded munitions by the end of 2008, she said.
"Our biggest obstacle is that "Israel" did not provide us with [maps showing] cluster-bomb strike locations: their targets, geographic location, quantities and types," she said.
"Israel" has also not revealed how many bombs were dropped on Lebanon, but insists prohibited weaponry was not used during the conflict.
"But the problem in Lebanon was so big that it gave a push to organizations and countries which are fighting for an international ban on cluster bombs. And since last year, there is talk that we are close to a ban," said Farran.
She said the UN-led effort also covered the clearance of 25,000 land mines and unexploded ordnance in the Nabatiyeh, Jezzine and Hasbaya districts, all north of the Litani River, south of which UN peacekeepers are deployed.
"In addition, there are about 375,000 land mines - mostly "Israeli"-made anti-personnel mines - along the Blue Line [the UN-demarcated border with "Israel"] and about 2-3 kilometers inside Lebanese territory," she said. "But we have no mandate to clear the border area because of political reasons."
Farran said the toll of about 250 people killed and wounded by cluster bombs or land mines in the past year was "a significant figure, considering that 300 people were killed or wounded between 2000 and 2006."
"But the casualty toll is decreasing every month as the clearing operation progresses," she said. "At first, there were cluster bombs everywhere - on roads, inside houses, gardens, water wells and all kinds of inhabited areas."
"We work according to priorities," Rundstrom explained. "We first clear residential areas, then agricultural fields because they are important economically, and then empty fields."
The 38-year-old former soldier in the Swedish Army, who once also cleared similar fields in Laos, said that "operations are difficult because there are a lot of trees in the region."
"It is difficult to clear them as the soil is soft or mostly flooded every three weeks by the farmer - which allows bomblets to sink even deeper into the soil," he said.
The apparently fearless Swedish deminer brushes away the large banana leaves as he steers his way between the color-coordinated wooden sticks pointing at the presence of unexploded ordnance in the plantation. He gives strict instructions to his team.
"These young people have been trained. But in Lebanon there is a problem because people pick up bomblets with their own hands. Some others make it a living; they are paid $5 for each bomblet," he said. "One guy who is 19 years old removed 4,000 of them, so imagine the money he made."
Deminer Ali Malak, 27, is one of 45 men in the Southern village of Beit Leef who have joined the clearing operation.
"Many of us were unemployed. Now we earn $700 a month," a significant sum in the impoverished South, he said.
A colleague, Mustafa, explained: "I used to plant tobacco. Today I pick cluster bombs. I feel I have to do this. Many people I know either died or were maimed ... I want to save my people and my country."