Stepanakert: April hostilities in Karabakh actualize problem of dud munitions
STEPANAKERT. May 4 (Interfax) - Sappers from the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) State Emergency Situations Service have neutralized a dud air-launched mine in the Astkhashen community in the Askeran district, a service representative told Interfax on Wednesday.
A village school principal told the authorities that his students had found the dud projectile in a field. The sappers demolished the air-launched mine.
"Neutralization of mines, and other projectiles, is a permanent focus of the republican authorities and agencies dealing with this problem. The work, which has been going on for more than 20 years, has helped to find and unarm thousands of shells, mines, and other dud munitions. Their number has grown after the attacks on a number of peacefully populated localities from the side of Azerbaijan, in April of this year. This time, the enemy used new types of weapons, among them, LAR-160 cluster munitions, the neutralization of which is a pressing task," the service representative said.
In cooperation with an international organization, The Halo Trust, a team of the service's sappers unarmed over 200 dud munitions, including LAR-160 cluster shells, in the Martakert district in April. This process has been ongoing.
Tensions in the Karabakh conflict zone abruptly escalated in the early hours of April 2. Hostilities engaging aircraft and artillery began. The sides traded accusations on the breach of ceasefire along the contact line, as well as claiming the adversary's substantial losses and limited losses of their own.
On April 5, Baku and Stepanakert, the capital of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, announced that an agreement had been reached to cease fire in the Karabakh conflict area. Since then, the parties have exchanged daily accusations of numerous ceasefire breaches.
Nagorno-Karabakh is the first conflict zone in the post-Soviet space, where the problem of anti-personnel mines has become very acute. There is information that the NKR territory was covered by more than 100,000 mines and shells of various types during the entire period of hostilities, from 1991 through 1994, and more than 15,000 hectares of land were mined. This ratio is extremely high for the small region. Considering the population size, and density and the size of the republic, the ratio of mines planted in Nagorno-Karabakh is comparable to that in Afghanistan, experts said.
The largest quantity of mines and other types of projectiles, were found in the Martakert district of the NKR, where villages were taken over by the conflicting sides more frequently than in other territories.
