This week, we visited one of our demining teams, Team 28, who is operating in extremely difficult circumstances above Yemen’s Red Sea Coast.
Located north east of the strategic town of Dhubab and south east of Quddam in the south-western Taiz Governorate, the team is currently clearing a steep mountain flank, which was used as a defensive position by Houthi militias during the battlefront of Taiz in 2017.
Here, they have cleared mixed threats: banned anti-personnel landmines and anti-tank landmines. The teams have also cleared dozens of other remnants of war of all sizes.
While government troops regained control of the area and surrounding cities throughout 2017 and 2018, former positions east of Dhubab, which are today used by civilians to heard sheep and collect firewood, today remain contaminated with mixed explosive threats. We were told several herders, and their animals, were injured and killed in this very area.
Since moving to the area, Project Masam deminers have been conducting Mine Risk Education with the local population to mitigate the risk of landmines and explosive remnants of war.
In this terrain, fraught with falling boulders and skidding rocks, deminers must also face heavy winds and swirling dust, making clearance particularly taxing.
