The Yemeni Minister of State and Mayor of the capital Sana’a has praised Project Masam for its efforts to secure the lives of millions of Yemenis from the dangers of landmines and other explosive devices.
Since the conflict between Yemen’s pro-government troops and allied forces and Houthi militias and their allies escalated in 2014, liberated strategic areas have been left littered with Houthi anti-personnel mines and anti-tank mines, along with unexploded remnants of war.
In a phone call to Project Masam’s Managing Director Ousama Algosaibi, Major General Abdul Ghani Jamil voiced his gratitude towards the humanitarian clearance project and its staff for the achievements and humanitarian advances made over the past six years of operation across liberated land in Yemen.
General Jamil also shared a message of thanks and appreciation towards the Saudi leadership, which funds the project, for their support of Yemen at all levels.
Algosaibi, meanwhile, thanked the Minister of State for staying in contact and his regular follow-ups about the project’s progress, stressing that Project Masam will continue its humanitarian mission in Yemen to protect innocent people against landmines, noting that the project will spare no effort to fulfil its mission to one day declare Yemen landmine-free.
Since it launched in mid-2018, Project Masam has located and destroyed 426,809 explosive devices in Yemeni liberated areas. These include 6,444 anti-personnel mines, 142,557 anti-tank mines, 269,865 unexploded ordnance (UXO) and 7,943 improvised explosive devices (IEDs) neutralised over 52,866,740 square metres of land (as at 26 December 2023).
Sanaa was Yemen’s capital until March 2015, when the seat of the government moved to now de-facto capital Aden by then-president Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi following the Houthi – also known as Ansar Allah – occupation of Sanaa.
In 2022, Hadi resigned and transferred his power to the newly formed eight-member Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), chaired by Rashad al-Alimi.
