Project Masam has announced today it has successfully demolished 772 landmines, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and unexploded ordnance (UXO) in Yemen’s southern Bab al-Mandab area.
The mine clearance operation was carried out by Project Masam’s demining Team 19, and included 13 anti-tank mines, 28 miscellaneous shells, two anti-personnel mines, 129 assorted fuses, 596 rounds, three IEDs, and one hand grenade.
Since the beginning of June, the project has destroyed 2,037 mines and other remnants of war in Abyan and Bab al-Mandab. The Special Task Team 1 destroyed 602 mines and unexploded shells in Dofas, Abyan governorate, including 221 assorted shells, 12 IEDs, four hand grenades, three anti-tank mines, one aerial vehicle carrying a large explosive warhead, two anti-personnel mines, 226 assorted rounds, and 133 miscellaneous fuses.
In Bab al-Mandab, meanwhile, Project Masam’s Special Task Team 2 destroyed 659 mines and unexploded shells, including siz anti-tank mines, nine anti-personnel mines, 23 shells, four IEDs, 429 assorted rounds, and 188 miscellaneous fuses.
Continued efforts on Yemen’s West Coast
This week, Project Masam teams removed four anti-tank mines from the coast of the Bab al-Mandab Strait, in the Al-Ardi area, Dhubab district, west of Taiz governorate.
The Leader of Project Masam’s demining Team 19, Engineer Khaled Daoud, stated that the mines were discovered during an operation to secure the coast of the Bab al-Mandab Strait, based on a report from a fisherman who had found a foreign object on the coast, as well as several explosions that had occurred in the area.
Daoud mentioned that the Houthi militias have extensively and indiscriminately planted mines on the coasts and mountains of the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait.
“In recent months, many fishermen have fallen victim to mine explosions while they were going to sea to practice their trade,” he said. “These explosions have led to the death of many amphibians on the coast of the strait, such as turtles, as they come out of the water to lay their eggs in the sand”.
Mines laid on the coast of the Bab al-Mandab Strait threaten the lives of fishermen and amphibians and impede maritime traffic in one of the world’s most important straits.
Project Masam continues its efforts to clear Yemeni territory of mines and explosive devices, which were indiscriminately planted by the Houthi militias.
Total clearance
Project Masam’s Managing Director Ousama Algosaibi on Sunday (9 June) announced that from the project’s launch in June 2018 until 7 June 2024, demining teams cleared 446.112 mines, UXO and IEDs.
In a statement, he highlighted how the teams removed 144,457 anti-tank mines, 6,537 anti-personnel mine, 287,073 UXO, and 8,051 IEDs since the beginning of clearance operations in mid-2018.
Demining teams cleared 57,115,259 square metres of Yemeni territory that were laid with mines and IEDs, and littered with UXO.
