RIYADH: Teams from Saudi Arabia’s Masam de-mining project in Yemen destroyed more than 4,200 mines and other remnants of war in the coastal governorate of Abyan this week.
The devices included anti-personnel and anti-tank mines, grenades, missiles, shells and other materials.
Military engineer Munther Qasim Ahmed, who led the operation, said that over the past month explosive objects had been collected from Aden, Lahj and Abyan following reports from local people.
A Masam team last week removed a shell and a bomb that had been found close to a solar power plant in Aden, he said.
All of the materials were destroyed on Thursday in Abyan.
Ahmed said that the humanitarian mission sought to protect civilians from the threat of unexploded mines and other remnants of war. Over the past eight years Masam teams have removed more than 578,000 such devices, clearing an area of almost 84 million sq. meters.
The Iran-backed Houthi militia, which has controlled parts of Yemen since 2014, mined several areas while engaged in combat with government forces.
About 5 million people have been forced to flee their homes since the start of the conflict, many of them displaced by the presence of land mines.
