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Lankan troops recover over 1.5 million landmines in North

by lalith | June 12, 2009 at 09:35 pm

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Sri Lankan troops have so far recovered over 1.5 million landmines from the region captured from the LTTE and have expedited the process of demining the areas to facilitate the early resettlement of displaced civilians in the northern region.

The army has launched massive searches to recover the weapons of LTTE, especially claymore mines and other destructive explosives, in the northern areas.

Top defence sources said they still believe that millions of mines are buried under land in the areas which were held by the LTTE and added that Indian and Danish demining agencies are also involved in the search process besides Sri Lankan army personnel.

The demining process is yet in operation in the war torn areas of Sri Lanka. Although mines are buried in paths of most probable enemy advance, this thinking was flouted by the LTTE during the latter stages of the war.

Since the Sri Lanka Army advanced towards Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu and finally towards the heavily fortified hide out of Prabhakaran, the pattern of laying mines by the LTTE changed. They lay mine anywhere and everywhere they could. This, not only slowed down the advance of the troops, but also injured civilians in the area who were doing their agriculture etc.

The presence of land mines has been a major hampering factor when clearing areas for resettlement of those displaced.

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CeeGee

at 01:41 on June 13th, 2009

De-mining is a time consuming, dangerous and insurmountable task. It is creditable to have recovered and defused 1.5 million mine in such a short period.

Re-settlement of IDPs will be very dependant on how fast this task is completed and areas declared safe.