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The anti-personnel mines which are prohibited internationally are ones of the main weapons used by the Houthis against civilians due to their ability to inflict horrible pains and chronic impairments that stay with the victims for their whole lives, and leave psychological and physical effects that can never be forgotten.
In Bayhan and Usaylan directorates of Shabwah governorate, the Houthi militias planted deliberately these mines which are considered primitive, in mountainous heights, between the houses, in roads frequented by civilians, in houses’ thresholds and inside them, by a camouflaged method in order to make them hard to detect.
Team 9 Masam, and since it started its mission within the project in the middle of 2018, was able to secure and purify 16 fields and mined areas in Bayhan and Usaylan, 9 of them were fields filled with anti-personnel mines, and 7 of them filled with landmines which were classified according to the level of danger in areas that are highly important as they are vital areas for civilians’ lives and livelihood.
In an exclusive interview with Masam’s media office, the leader of team 19 Masam Engineer Ali Abdullah Ar Raymi confirmed that his team was able to clear 2479 mines, explosive devices and unexploded ordnance from 16 mined areas in Bayhan and Usaylan directorates in Shabwah.
Ar Raymi said that the field which his team is working on now to secure is the upper region of Bayhan – Al Irsal mountain is a high impact field planted with anti-personnel mines, with a size that exceeds 15 thousand square meters and with a very difficult geographical nature as it is considered a mountainous region. Ar Raymi noted that the team was able to secure 10 % of the field’s total size, and the work is still going on until it is fully secured, then the team can move to another region in a mission which he described as important to save civilians from the danger of anti-personnel mines.
Engineer Ar Raymi reiterated that the Houthi militias over-planted mines at random and without maps that can be used as references, which makes civilians the only ones who pay a heavy price for many years to come.
Ar Raymi added that Masam project halted the houthis’ dreams and crimes in harming hundreds or thousands of civilian victims who did nothing wrong except that the Houthis entered once their areas.