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By late 1991, the windswept MAG caravan had been replaced by a small office on Cockermouth high street. But housekeeping issues were not on the top of the office agenda.
With the news media dominated by the Gulf War crisis and the growing plight of the Iraqi Kurds, the international advocacy organisation Human Rights Watch approached MAG for help in carrying out an impact assessment of landmines on civilians in the Northern Kurdish areas of the country.
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Mine Risk Education is delivered to Angolan children by MAG Community Liaison staff in 1995 using a game. |
On the orders of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi army had started laying hundreds of new minefields across the Kurdistan region, adding to the many still left over from the brutal Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. And it was civilians, often children, who were bearing the brunt.
After resourcefully hitching a ride into Iraq with aid convoys via southern Turkey, Lou and Rae set about on a mission to determine the extent of the problem. What they found in Northern Iraq left a long-lasting impression and their experience was to determine the future of the organisation.
“We saw some absolutely horrific injuries,” remembers Lou. “And what struck us the most was that people were trying to clear the mines themselves with inevitably appalling consequences. It was really at that point that the idea of providing Mine Risk Education [MRE] to those at risk came about. People needed to understand what they were up against.”
The idea of providing MRE was not the only positive outcome of the 1991 assessment to Iraq. By 1992 MAG, now bestowed with formal charity status, made the decision to set up a permanent operation in the war-torn country.
One international staff member was sent out to train local Iraqi-Kurds in the safe techniques of mine and UXO clearance. Thanks to the personal support and intervention of France’s first lady, Madame Mitterand – a French military transport plane was deployed to London Stansted airport – heavy demining equipment, communication apparatus, medical kits and protective gear all made their way over to MAG’s first ever permanent overseas mission.
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Salaam Mohammed: first to sign up to MAG's inaugural demining training course. |
MAG’s first national employee was Iraqi Kurd Salaam Mohammed who, in 1992, volunteered to sign up to the inaugural demining training course. Having fled to the Iranian border, Salaam and his family returned home to a heavily mined village and were witnesses to the horrors of mine and UXO injuries within their increasingly desperate communities.
“I really wanted to help my people, who were living without hope,” he remembers. Eighteen years later Salaam is still employed with MAG and currently holds the senior role of Technical Operations Manager in Lebanon.
The establishment of the Iraq programme in 1992 was to pave the way for further MAG programmes around the world. By 1994, full-time operations were also up and running in Cambodia, Lao PDR and Angola with international and local staff working side by side to clear mines and UXO for the benefit of communities. [Cont...]
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