The Daily Star - Female mine-clearing team - Febryary 26, 2011

EU delegation praised ongoing efforts to clear ordnance from 2006, but says more must be done

By Patrick Galey Daily Star staff

BINT JBEIL: For six days a week, the children of Jmaijmeh make their way to the local school. It is only on every seventh day that the mine-clearers come in.

More than 200 pupils spend their week cooped up in sparse classrooms and on the small, concrete square next to the tiny village’s main building.

The flower beds, grass and walkways close to the perimeter fence, are all still off limits. It is here that the remnants of Israeli cluster munitions still lurk, over four years after they were carpeted over south Lebanon during the 2006 July war’s fading hours.

Tasked with removing this explosive detritus – on the only day the children don’t have class – is a cluster removal team unlike any other in the country. This one is female only.

“It is good to work with an all-female team, because women tend to be more patient in clearing than men,” says Lamia Zein, the Jmaijmeh national site coordinator for mine-clearing nongovernmental organization Norwegian People’s Aid.

The team of six women, all of whom hail from nearby, painstakingly survey the corrugated soil on the other side of the school’s breeze block wall, obtuse protective helmets perched atop dark hijabs.

Zein emphasizes the importance of working meticulously, not least for her squad’s personal safety.

“Because of the levels of contamination, most people were impatient and they wanted to use the land immediately,” she says. “Of course, no one knows what will happen in the future, but we haven’t had any casualties yet.”

Due to the different nature of rapid response missions on initially heavily contaminated soil, this is the third time Zein’s team has had to clear the same area of land. “And we are still finding munitions,” she says.

Visiting Zein’s clearance crew Friday was Angelina Eichhorst, the newly appointed head of the EU Delegation to Lebanon, on her first trip to the country and its war-torn south.

Her organization donated 7 million euros to fund ongoing mine and cluster bomb clearance operations and Eichhorst was adamant that the acts committed by Israel, which saw the scatter-gunning of up to four million bomb fragments target civilian areas in the last 72 hours of the hostilities, should never be repeated.

“Prevention is the most important thing to try to stop this happening again,” Eichhorst told the team. “You people risk [your] lives to save other people’s lives every day.”

Fifty people have been killed since August 2006, blown apart by cluster fragments, and 325 injured. The vast majority of casualties are young males. They could be children playing in the parched scrubland or agricultural workers tilling their fields.

Gen. Mohammad Fehmi, head of the Lebanese Mine Action Center points out the pressing issue of dealing with those injured in cluster blasts, who face “catastrophic” psychological damage.

“Accidents happen and they can happen to anyone. But the problem is after the accident,” he says. “Who cares for the victims? We wish we were like other countries, where the government helps people after the accident. But this is Lebanon.”

He adds that the international community must up funding efforts to help provide some future for those whose lives are wrecked by these indiscriminate weapons.

LMAC, under guidance from the Lebanese Army, now coordinates 18 teams of clearance workers. The vision is to rid Lebanon of all unexploded devices, including land mines and cluster bomb fragments, by 2015.

In spite of coordinated efforts between LMAC and a variety of national and international NGOs, which together have cleared more than two-thirds of all cluster munitions in Lebanon, over 18 square kilometers of contaminated land remains.

In addition, a staggering 410,868 land mines are still embedded in Lebanese soil, the majority of which are close to the fractious Blue Line.

In a speech earlier in the day, Eichhorst praised the efforts thus far but outlined the huge task still faced by mine removal teams.

“Lives have been saved and the number of injured people has decreased. Many people have been able to return to their homes or their land, which is fundamental for local life and the economy to return to normal,” she said.

“Despite these positive results, there is still a considerable amount of unexploded ordnance. Too many children are still prevented from playing in the field, too many men and women are still risking being injured for life.”

Eichhorst also praised Lebanon’s 2010 ratification of the Oslo Accord, an international agreement outlawing the use, production and stockpiling of cluster munitions.

“These weapons must not be used anymore. They have obvious humanitarian consequences, and they also pose tremendous socio-economic challenges to development,” she added.

Fehmi says the Lebanese government, which provides $6.5 million worth of mine clearance funding each year, has helped LMAC streamline operations. During his two year tenure, Fehmi has introduced a number of regulations to ensure the sustainability of a clearance operation that is feeling the funding pinch from a global community left reeling by the financial crisis.

“If any NGO wants to work in Lebanon, it should now have more than 80 percent national staff, because of the socio-economic situation and to improve our capacity,” Fehmi says.

Zein’s team fits the bill perfectly.  “We have shown we are equal to men in every way, even in [conducting] detonations,” she says. “We have trained for this and none of us are afraid.”