Project Masam has announced today it has successfully demolished 602 landmines, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and unexploded ordnance (UXO) in Yemen’s southern Abyan region.
The bulk destruction operation was carried out on 9 June by Project Masam’s Special Task Team 1 in the Dofas area of Abyan governorate, and included two anti-personnel mines, three anti-tank mines 221 miscellaneous shells, 12 IEDs, four hand grenades, an aerial vehicle carrying a large explosive warhead, 226 miscellaneous rounds, and 133 miscellaneous fuses.
These controlled demolitions, which follow international standards, mitigate the risk of landmines and other unexploded ordnance of falling into the wrong hands, or being repurposed for improvised explosive devices (IEDs) which continue to be locally manufactured and used in Yemen against civilians and military targets – without discrimination.
Sitting east of the de-factor capital Aden, remote and mountainous parts of Abyan province has been the theatre of sporadic attacks from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) against Southern Armed Forces fighters, loyal to the Southern Transitional Council (STC) allied with the internationally recognised Yemeni government. AQAP’s leader, Khalid Batarfi, was killed in March 2024.
Project Masam’s Managing Director Ousama Algosaibi, meanwhile, announced that since launch in June 2018, the project’s demining teams cleared 446,112 mines, UXOs, and IEDs across 11 governorates.
Algosaibi said in a statement that since the end of June 2018, the teams have removed 446,112 mines, UXOs, and IEDs.
Since the beginning of its operations. Project Masam teams have removed 144,457 anti-tank mines, 6,537 anti-personnel mines, 287,073 UXOs and 8,051 IEDs.
Algosaibi also highlighted that the demining teams have cleared 57,115,259 square metres of Yemeni territory that were laid with mines, and IEDs planted by the Houthis, and left littered with other remnants of war.
