Paul Baldwin visits Azerbaijan’s minefields
Meet Oskar. Oskar is a very special dog. While most dogs are happy to sniff around in the dirt and dig up bones, Oskar sniffs around in the dirt and digs up Russian TM-62 anti-tank mines.
It’s fair to say Oskar has a very particular set of skills – a set of skills which make him and his canine colleagues absolutely vital to the future of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan.
Because conservative estimates suggest more than 1.5 million landmines lie waiting to inflict their particular brand of indiscriminate dreadfulness here, on any man, woman, child or animal foolish enough to stray off the roads. The region has an unenviable reputation for having the highest per capita rate of death and injury due to unexploded mines on the planet.
Even during the relative peace following the second Karabakh conflict in 2020 – which saw Azerbaijan’s rejuvenated military oust the Armenian occupiers in just 44 days – 350 civilians have been killed and an unknown, but much greater, number maimed and injured. And this was while the area was effectively empty.
A plan is now underway to return 700,000 Azerbaijanis, exiled after the Armenian occupation in the early 1990s. With more than a whiff of Soviet-era grandiosity it is being called The Great Return. But – 700,000 people, 1.5 million landmines … you can see the fix Azerbaijan finds itself in.
Oskar bravo – mine-clearing dogs play a vital role in the very future of Azerbaijan (Image: Paul Baldwin)
Fuad Huseynov, deputy minister in charge of the relocation of the 700,000 so-called IDP’s (Internally Displaced People) said: “Unless we can give our people a 100 percent assurance that the areas we are returning them to are completely clear of mines then we cannot move anyone. We dare not leave a single mine.
“We have one of the most heavily-mined areas on earth. President Aliyev thinks it will take 25 years and $30Bn to clean up. We have had some help from Britain and the EU but they are drops in the ocean.”
That 25 years and $30Bn by the way are considered extremely optimistic figures by many experts. The horrific situation is a hangover from the first Karabakh conflict in 1990 which saw Armenians living in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan seizing military control of and effectively occupying the region for 30 years.
The Armenians renamed Karabakh as Artsakh, but the international community refused to recognise the area as anything but Azerbaijan. This is not entirely surprising as Artsakh was effectively a satellite state of Armenia plonked right in the middle of Azerbaijan – a bit like France occupying Yorkshire and claiming it to be French, all just a bit ridiculous.
The international community unfortunately committed little in terms of practical help and 700,000 IDPs fled for their lives, many families travelling on foot the 300km to the Azeri capital Baku.
Dogs of war: The dogs with a nose for deadly ordnance and the men who rely on them to stay alive (Image: Paul Baldwin)
Meanwhile Armenia – which was the Soviet Union‘s centre for landmine production in the Kruschev and Brezhnev era – continued to produce and deploy the incomprehensible number of mines, laying them like a carpet over the disputed area.
Which brings us back to Oskar and his colleagues who are painstakingly covering the ground around the first villages selected for rebuilding and re-settling, metre by deadly metre.
Namiq Balayev, an operational manager for Azerbaijan mine-clearance agency ANAMA, said: “We first select an area we believe to be mined and initially send mechanised mine sweepers, but then the dogs, like Oskar, go in and when they sniff out the mine’s precise location we follow international standards and detonate the mine.”
The project is massive but progress is impressive too. In 2020 alone 158,000 hectares of Karabakh lands were declared clear and controlled explosions were carried out on 153,000 mines.
“During the 30-year occupation we believe more than 3000 people, mainly civilians, were killed by mines.”
One wrong step and you come home in a jam-jar Elgun Meherremov tells reporter Paul Baldwin (Image: Paul Baldwin)
Now, this would be pretty abominable in any given situation but this is a nation desperately trying to rebuild itself from scratch after two wars and 30 years of occupation by neighbouring Armenia. The place lies in ruins. The Armenians basically ransacked the place taking and selling anything – from the possessions left in homes by fleeing families to the very bricks of those same homes.
Barely a stone still stands upon a stone, and the Azerbaijan government is basically terraforming – building an entire nation from scratch. But nothing can be built until, area-by-area, the mines are cleared.
Namiq Balayeo said: “Even since the 2020 re-taking of the area there have been 378 victims of mines – these were people just trying to go back to their homeland and start farming again. And in so doing they stood on land mines.
“Trip wires are also prevalent across ditches so we have to remain constantly vigilant. In some cases they placed anti-personnel mines on top of anti-tank mines. If you step on one of those you go home in a jam-jar.
“No-one can use these fields right now because they are far too dangerous but I hope and dream at some point in the future this place will be a paradise and it is notable that lot’s of former IDP’s are now part of the demining efforts.”
Hard yards: Mineclearing teams painstakingly examine every square inch of ground for deadly weapons (Image: Paul Baldwin)
Elgun Meherremov is one such IDP from a village in the Aghdam region helping with mine clearance operations.
He said: “In 1993 when we were forced to leave our home I was 10-years-old. It was very difficult, we left our motherland to live as exiles, we didn’t really have any childhood. Now we are back I cannot express my feelings. It is a new life.
“It is dangerous work but I know if we clear these fields a new generation will be able to live here so it is a great honour. It’s a dangerous operation but I’m not scared because I have done this for a long time. I’m more scared of the snakes to be honest.
“I have three children and I have to do the best for them. They are citizens of this country and they need a future and so we have no option but to clear these mines.”