22 April 2008

Statement on Former Afghan Mine-Removal Workers

U.S. sponsors training for unemployed Afghan deminers to learn new skills

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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
April 21, 2008

MEDIA NOTE

Former Afghan Deminers Learn New Civilian Skills

Since 1988, over 1.3 billion square meters of land in Afghanistan, an area roughly half the size of Rhode Island, have been cleared of landmines and explosive remnants of war.  With so much progress being made, the need for Afghan humanitarian deminers is decreasing, leaving a growing number of them unemployed.

To help these unemployed deminers find suitable work, the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement (WRA), in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, is sponsoring a training program.  The program established a vocational training center in Kandahar to impart new civilian skills (carpentry, electrical work, painting, plumbing, and masonry), and discourage unemployed deminers from working for anti-government elements.  The first class of 120 deminers from the Demining Agency for Afghanistan (DAFA) graduated in January.  A new class of former deminers from DAFA and from the Mine Clearance Planning Agency have begun training in peacetime skills at the vocational center.  Like the first class, they will eventually enter the civilian workforce and help to shape Afghanistan’s future. See related photos at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/pix/b/103804.htm.

This remarkable indicator of success in clearing so many of Afghanistan’s “hidden killers” is thanks to the hard work of thousands of Afghan deminers, who are renowned for their courage, dedication, and expertise. Some gave their lives in the process. It is also due to the hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian mine action assistance that the United States has extended to Afghanistan since helping to launch humanitarian demining there in 1988. The generous support of other donor nations, non-governmental organizations, and the United Nations over the years has also been essential.

To learn more about the Office of WRA's humanitarian mine action programs and conventional weapons destruction programs, visit http://www.state.gov/t/pm/wra/.  These programs, together with the efforts of other donor nations, have contributed to dramatically reducing the worldwide rate of reported casualties from landmines and explosive remnants of war to 5,751 in 2006.

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(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)