12/03/2023 Azerbaijan–Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh)
“If you ever come across anything suspicious like this item, please do not pick it up, contact your local law e enforcement agency for assistance”.
On a cold morning as the wind whistles down from snow-capped mountains, deminers Taguhi Grigoryan and Shamiram Grigoryan adjust their body armour and visors. They are about to embark on Battle Area Clearance with their male colleagues in the suburbs of Stepanakert, the main city of Nagorny Karabakh. The two are among 16 women who work for the HALO Trust, a British demining charity operating in Karabakh since 2000. Since the end of the 1992-1994 war, Karabakh has the highest per capita rate in the world of accidents due to landmines and unexploded ordnance. A quarter of the casualties have been children. In 20 years, the HALO Trust has cleared around 47 sq km of minefields, finding and destroying almost 12,000 landmines. However, the 44-day war of 2020 saw the area bombarded with cluster munitions in residential areas including the capital Stepanakert and neighbouring communities. Some of them did not explode and jeopardized the population. Taguhi is a 30-year-old mother of a nine-month-old daughter who has been working at the HALO Trust for five years. She lives with her daughter and mother in the village of Khnatsakh and said that she had to overcome stereotypes to take on a job not usually associated with women.
‘’We live in fear, not for ourselves but for our children.”
Photo-Source: iwpr.net
Biography of a Bomb
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