Iraqi Kurdistan faces challenges in clearing land mines

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq — A small pile of stones in a field may look harmless to the casual observer, but they are a marker for a real danger in Iraqi Kurdistan. Land mines and other explosive remnants of war litter the country from decades of conflict.

“I don’t think mines have been used like this anywhere else in the world,” Sean Sutton, photographer and international communications manager for the Mines Advisory Group (MAG), told Al-Monitor. There are an estimated 314 million square meters (121 square miles) of contaminated land across Iraqi Kurdistan, dating from the Iran-Iraq war and Saddam Hussein’s campaign against the Kurds.

When the Iraqi Kurdistan Mine Action Authority (IKMAA) consolidated in 2012, they were able to provide the resources and funding to clear about 1 million square meters (247 acres) of contaminated land annually. “It means we will need 300 years [to clear all the land],” Sabah Hama-Khan, the director general of the Sulaimaniyah Mine Action Center told Al-Monitor. Since then, Hama-Khan said clearance rates have increased, from 3 million square meters (741 acres) to 5 million (2 square miles) to 13 million (5 square miles) in 2013.

Clearing landmines has become a business here, with humanitarian and commercial clearance operators working with the government to reduce the size of contaminated land. But it has also become deeply politicized, since money for clearing mines relies on external sources of funding. The central government in Baghdad has been holding back Iraqi Kurdistan’s budget for months, meaning government workers across the country are unpaid and IKMAA is still working off last year’s budget. They cannot continue clearance work next season without the funding they require to pay commercial operators.