By NNN-Bernama,
New Delhi : The Sri Lankan military is at the final stage of clearing high-impact landmines in former war zones but the “highly contaminated” Mullaitive, once the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’s (LTTE) naval base, remains a tough test.
A total of 358,588 landmines were cleared since the protracted bloody separatist war between Sri Lankan troops and LTTE ended in 2009.
However, another 300 to 400sq km (40,000 hectares) territory, once the hotbed of the LTTE, is yet to be cleared.
In an interview with Bernama from Colombo, Sri Lankan military spokesman Major-General Ubaya Medawala said, de-mining experts were working in the “highly concentrated areas” but were unable to give a timeline to clean up affected areas.
“We have cleared about 96 percent in Jaffna, Polonnaruwa and Mannar, but in Mullaitivu LTTE had laid mines in a concentrated manner. It is a very tedious and difficult process,” he said.
Most of the island’s northern and eastern provinces, largely populated by Tamils, were contaminated with landmines, as both military and LTTE used mines as a lethal war weapon during the war.
On May 18, 2009, the Sri Lankan army defeated LTTE in Mullaitivu, a small town in the north-eastern coast of Sri Lanka, the naval base of the movement’s Sea Tigers wing, to end a civil war that raged for almost 25 years.
Thousands of helpless Tamils, mostly poverty-stricken villagers, trapped between LTTE fighters and military forces, were mercilessly killed during the tail-end of the conflict.
But war survivors fear returning home due to landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) that pose serious threats to life.
“We are using all maximum available resources — manual, mechanical and sniffer dogs to de-mine, but these are tough terrains, with buildings and jungle.
“Our biggest challenge is to resettle the IDPs (internally-displaced persons) in their homes. We need to clear these areas from mines because many depend on agricultural land for their livelihoods,” said Medawala.
The Sri Lankan Government estimates over one million landmines and UXO were planted during the war, when LTTE fought for a separate homeland for minority Tamils.
The Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, a global mines monitoring agency, reported 1,310 causalities in Sri Lanka between 1999 and 2009, with 123 deaths.