Impact of achievements:
OMAR has completed a great deal of priority areas for mine clearance months ago, the change in the city may be astounding. Whereas previously the entire area had been ruin and surrounding areas had reverted to desert, today there is brisk trade going on, and so much activity and rebuilding underway that one literally cannot go down the streets without stepping over or around carpenters or others busily at work. There are hundreds of thriving shops and over nineteen business centers – all doing more than US Dollars 2,000,000 in trade daily. The road is full of traffic – trucks filled to over flowing with goods from Iran, large trucks carrying Afghan refugee returnees from Iran laden with goods; pick-ups full of wood, taxis, buses, horse drawn coaches, donkeys laden with food and goods, and people freely commuting back and forth. As 4.4 million squares meters of housing areas cleared of mines, now over 35,000 houses are built which were minefields previously. 9.5 million square meters of agricultural land and 1,4 million square meters of irrigation system, 13.4 square meters of road, 13,4 million square meters of grazing land and 25.5 million square meters of battle area have been cleared of mines which formerly were minefields, this helped people a lot to rehabilitate their farm land and repair irrigation system in order to restart normal lives there. Activities of the Organization for Mine clearance and Afghan Rehabilitation (OMAR) in the past 16 years that are as under:
MF cleared BF Cleared AP AT UXO Metal Fragments
45.2 sqkm 19 sqkm 42,965 760 539,638 22,000,000
Mine Risk Education trainees in million:
Male Female Children NGO Staff Total
2.4 1.8 5.3 0.0055 9.5
The fact that considerably more mines and UXO were cleared in 2004/5, than in previous years is reflective of OMAR increased efficiently, both technically and through mine awareness, it is evident that the continuation of our operations is desperately required for the ongoing rehabilitation of Afghanistan. Statistics can be manipulated to prove many claims, but these figures speak for themselves.
The overriding issue, however, is not the amount of mines disposed of, or the size of the area cleared.
What concerns the humanitarian world is ending, or at least restricting, the suffering of the Afghan people. For how can one quantify a child’s quality of like, or provide statistics on the ability of a family to lead a safe and sustainable existence. Moreover OMAR implemented drug awareness projects in Kabul, Badakhshan and Nangarhar provinces of Afghanistan, funded by UNDCP/UNDP in 1992. In 1993 OMAR implemented another drug awareness project financed by UNDCP/UNDP in Badakhshan province. In 1995 OMAR implemented carpet weaving project for Afghan widows and carpentry project for orphans in IDPs camps of Nangarhar province, funded by WFP.