MAG was asked by the Puntland authorities to come to Bosasso, a town on the northern coast of Somalia, to clear a pile of mortars, rockets and projectiles, shown in the pictures below.
Some items were unexploded and some had been worked on by ‘explosive harvesters’, where locals take a hammer and chisel to the unexploded ordnance (UXO) and try to remove the explosive by hand – a very dangerous activity. The pile was lying up against the outer wall of a shanty settlement next to the beach where a lot of children live.
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Bosasso is incredibly hot and humid, so MAG’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team starts work at 5.30 in the morning. Due to insecurity in the region, the MAG staff are protected by armed policemen as they work. |
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The EOD team carefully sorts through the pile, dividing the items into two categories: those that can be safely removed and taken out to a destruction area outside of the town, and those that need to be destroyed in situ. |
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Every item needs to be double-checked for safety and recorded, so that it can be added to the database as items cleared and destroyed. This pile contained over 700 items of UXO and remnants of war, and weighed over three tonnes in total. |
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The team also removed other dangerous items that were being stored within the shanty town. Here, Mohammed, one of the team EOD operators, is removing a 120mm mortar from between two shacks. |
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The items that are safe to move are carried by truck out to the area where MAG is currently storing everything that has been cleared from Bosasso town. |
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Later the same morning, the EOD team was asked to clear more unexploded mortars and projectiles lying in a pile of rubbish in the middle of the town. |
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When the team completed this task and moved away, a local lady who had been observing from a distance came over with a great smile on her face and said: "I am so happy you have done this." |
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The piles in the foreground represent a morning’s work for the team. These are the 1,500 items cleared from the location next to the shanty settlement and the rubbish dump in the middle of the town. These items have been carefully checked and are now free from explosives, no longer posing any threat. Once further piles are cleared from inside the town they will be brought out to this spot in the desert, and will be buried deep underground. Future plans include putting the anti-aircraft gun barrels visible in the background beyond any use by cutting them in half. [photos: MAG Somalia] |
In the Puntland State of Somalia, MAG works with the Puntland Police and the Puntland Mine Action Centre. MAG's work in Somalia is funded by the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement, Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, US Department of State.
25 September 08
