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Somalia

Clearing a Booby-Trapped Nation
KONSAR Hassan, a pretty but gaunt 10-year-old girl. Iles In the surgical ward of the hospital here, her left leg blown off above the knee.
While herding sheep across the shrub-dotted wastelands by Hargeysa airport last month, she stepped on an anti-personnel mine — one of thou sands littering self-proclaimed Somaliland and endangering Its two million people.
Somaliland, near the Ethiopian border. Is the former Northern Somalia claimed liberated by the Somali Nation Movement (SNM). Founded in 1981. SNM waged an armed campaign against the govern ment of then President Siad Barre from Its camps In Ethiopia, with which Somalia engaged tn an one-and off war.
But a vicious full blown civil war broke out in Somalia tn 1988, when SNM launched an attack on the northern provinces. Government troops retaliated but began losing steam as Somalia — criticised for its repressive regime — lost foreign support and plunged into a huge economic crisis.
Barres forces finally retreated from Northern Somalia in January 1991, but not without leaving mines and explosives as grim reminders of the three-year war. An ongoing war between rebel factions has also injured 27,000 persons and claimed 14,000 lives as of November
The main streets of Hargeysa. Somaliland's bombed-out capital, are still unsafe. The gutted remains of homes are booby-trapped, unexploded ammunition Is regularly discovered. and official installations are ringed by mines
The number of mine injuries has "gradually declined to about one a week, said Dr. Khalid Mohamed of Hargeysa Hospital. "But It is sometimes sporadic "
The improved situation Is mostly due to the mine-clearing efforts of the National Pioneer Corps — made up of ex-SNM guerrillas — and their consultants from Rimfire, a British company.
Near the airport, a rag on a bush marks the spot where Konsar was maimed. Ten metres on either side, two six-member Pioneer teams clear separate paths, trying to pick up the edge of the minefield laid to protect a fuel deport. The minefield ts believed to run five kms deep to the airfield.
The work Is laboriously
slow. Al the front of each path, marked by whitewashed rocks, the Pioneers — in blue flak jackets and helmets — crouch line abreast and jab the ground ahead with sharpened aluminium probes. They work half-hour shifts to maintain concentration.
It Is impossible to see the mines with the named eye. So long as each probe thrust is angled below the surface, the 54 grams of explosive, designed to cripple rather than kill, with not blow up. The detonator Is then unscrewed and all recovered munitions arc detonated at the end of the day In a deafening explosion.
The Pioneers at first worked without equipment and the casualty rate among them was high. Since Rimfire came tn to lend expertise in October. 20.000 mines and various types of ammunition have been made safe, with 10 casualties among the Pioneers — eight in one accident in February when their vehicle ran over an anti-tank mine.
Hargeysa lacks medical facilities. Rimfires' mobile field
hospitals are held up in Djibouti in the northwest because the road through Ethiopia is still dangerous.
"I am doing this for my country and my people." 28-year-old Mohamed Ahmed said It’s a very difficult pro fession for us. it's very dangerous, and we don't have enough equipment. These are the problems but we can't stop the work."
Added Rashid Ahmed. 35: "We need any equipment that can detect plastic mines. We are only working by our luck. There In no medical care no blood for transfusions. There is a proverb, if you miss once you don't get a second chance."
The Pioneers had hoped armoured bulldozers like those used in the Gulf War would be sent here. But it now appears they will have to make do with Just their flak-Jackets and probes.
Rimfire, under two separate contracts funded by the US Agency for International Development. the European Community and the UN High
Commission for refugees, has already trained 220 Pioneers with a further 220 In the process of completing their course.
• Rimfire Is the largest employer in Somaliland. Applicants have been more than double the number of places available. There are few job opportunities, particularly among SNM veterans. Said
Mohamed Ahmed: "I am working for my country. But I also have a large family to support."
The Rimfire team, all exBritish forces bomb disposal experts, praise the Pioneers' courage and commitment, calling them "good lads".
The remaining mine detonation work could last several more years. The Pioneers have not begun clearing residents yet and have been concentrating on strategic government facilities.
But for an economy based on agriculture and livestock, "the mined roads and paths In the countryside have got to be the next priority,' said a Rimfire team member. "People can't get into their villages."