THE WAR BENEATH THE OLIVE TREES: CLEARING BAFLIYEH’S EXPLOSIVE LEGACY
Bafliyeh, southern Lebanon — Among olive trees and only a few metres from homes, a 13-member multi-task team from Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) is clearing explosive ordnance left by the latest war with Israel.
Lebanon has carried contamination from mines, cluster munition remnants and unexploded ordnance through successive conflicts; the latest hostilities have added new explosive hazards across the south, complicating the return to homes, farmland and damaged villages.
The NPA team divides the contaminated ground into controlled working lanes using wooden stakes, ropes and red-and-white tape. Deminers then move systematically through the terrain, combining visual searches with metal detectors and hand tools to locate explosive items beneath the surface.
The task in Bafliyeh began on September 28. By October 9, after ten working days, the team had cleared 20,720 square metres of a 21,614-square-metre area, leaving 894 square metres to be processed. Its field board records seven explosive items: five MZD-2 cluster munitions and two fuzes.
“Every field or area where we work has to have an evacuation area in case, God forbid, an accident happens,” says Ali Kanso, team leader.
Rihab Fatouni, deputy team leader and deminer, has worked in mine action since 2006. “People ask me: ‘You’re a woman. Aren’t you afraid to do this job?’ I tell them no — on the contrary. I love my work.” Her family, she says, fears for her every time she leaves home. Colleagues have been killed doing this work.
For Ali Mousa, deminer, the objective is immediate: “Our priority is to work between the houses and the fields, remove the danger from residents and allow them to return safely to their land and their homes”.
That danger is not abstract for the village. Abbas Youssef Zein, deputy mayor of Bafliyeh, says explosive remnants were discovered after the attacks. “Our village is small. Children play under the olive trees and in the public garden”.
Photo: © J I Mota / MedPress
