Japan provides $164,941 grant for Wadi Araba mine clearance efforts

The Japanese government on Thursday extended $164,941 in grant aid to support the Norwegian People's Aid (NPA) mine clearance activities in Wadi Araba.

The National Committee for De-mining and Rehabilitation (NCDR) initiated the de-mining programme as part of a two-pronged plan to clear 12 million square metres of mine-infested terrain in Wadi Araba and Aqaba over the next three years.

NPA, which is currently engaged in clearing the 126 minefields in Wadi Araba in close cooperation with the NCDR, started their Jordan programme in January 2006 after signing an agreement with the government to clear all the Israeli minefields in the southern region.

Japanese Ambassador in Jordan Shigenobu Kato signed the grant agreement yesterday with NPA Mine Action Jordan Programme Manager Stephen Bryant in the presence of NCDR Board Chairman HRH Prince Mired, according to a Japanese embassy statement.

The grant, provided within the framework of Japanese Grant Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Projects, will cover labour and uniform costs for one de-mining team in Wadi Araba for a year, starting this month.

Jordan has long suffered the negative impacts of landmines, which were laid during the 1948 partition of Palestine and the 1967-69 Arab-Israeli conflict. Rich agricultural lands have remained uncultivated, irrigation and hydro-projects delayed and historical and world heritage sites unexplored.

It is estimated that roughly 8 per cent of the population are affected by the presence of landmines, the majority whom are women and children.

Efforts to eradicate the landmine threat have been under way since 1998 when Jordan signed the Ottawa Treaty, which obliges the country to be "mine-free" by May 2009.

In compliance with the treaty, NCDR launched the National Mine Action Plan in June 2005 to systematically address and reduce the risk of injury or death caused by landmines.

NPA, which has specialised in humanitarian mine action activities since its first mine action project in 1992, will assist the National NCDR to clear mines in Wadi Araba, a continuous minefield stretching from the Dead Sea down to the Red Sea

The southern border with Israel remains riddled with mines since the lands were returned as part of the 1994 peace agreement.

Removing these landmines is crucial for both communities and development projects in this area.

They include the American University in Aqaba and the Red-Dead canal project.

Jordan, which has more than 200,000 mines to clear by the 2009 deadline, has been working to ensure its land is deemed safe for communities and development.

Jordan's Royal Engineers Corps has been working since 1993 to remove an estimated 304,653 landmines from the country's soil.

They have so far cleared 101,559.

The current mine clearance capacity, however, falls short of the Ottawa Treaty target. Last year, Jordan acknowledged the need to quadruple its current efforts from 2 million square metres to 8 million square metres per year to meet that goal.

The bulk of work is needed in the Jordan Valley and the northern border with Syria, where an additional 5.5 million square metres of land must be cleared each year to be returned for productive use by 2009.