https://arab.news/jhfax
- Devices include artillery shells, antipersonnel and antitank mines, hand grenades, improvised explosive devices, fuses and ammunition
- Head of project’s special tasks team says explosives were recovered during operations to clear areas contaminated by what is known as ‘explosive remnants of war’
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Project Masam recently destroyed 4,573 landmines and other unexploded weapons in Yemen’s Abyan governorate.
The controlled demolitions took place in the Wadi Dofs area, the project said on Friday. The devices included artillery shells, antipersonnel and antitank mines, hand grenades, improvised explosive devices, fuses, ammunition and other military explosives retrieved from the southern governorates of Aden, Abyan and Lahj.
Monther Qassem, the leader of Masam’s special tasks team, said the explosives were recovered during operations to clear parts of the country contaminated by what is known as “explosive remnants of war.”
Some of the ordnance was collected from the Salah Al-Din area of Aden’s Al-Buraiqah district after residents posting a video online showing unexploded munitions near residents’ homes.
Acting on instructions from the Masam operations center, a team secured the site, removed the explosives and took them to the demolition site in Wadi Dofs, Qassem added, which he described as an approved location for the safe disposal of unexploded ordnance under procedures established by the project’s explosives experts.
He warned that explosive remnants of war continued to pose a serious threat to civilians, particularly women and children. He urged residents not to approach suspicious objects and to report any suspected munitions to authorities.
Project Masam, launched by Saudi Arabia in 2018, works to clear landmines and other unexploded devices deployed during the conflict in Yemen, which humanitarian organizations say cause civilian casualties and hinder access to farmland, roads and communities.