A number of appeals like these have been made by Azerbaijani NGOs which directly deal with landmine problems. Immediately after the Second Karabakh War ended, organizations that dealt with landmine problems had visits to the territories liberated from the occupation. We had several appeals after those visits too. We opened a petition once and enough people participated and joined our appeal from both internally and from foreign countries as well, Hafiz Safikhanov, Chairman of Azerbaijan Campaign Against Landmines Public Union told APA.
"As you know, Azerbaijan is in the top 10 countries of the world for its level of pollution with landmines in its territories and problems created by landmines and unexploded ordnance. This information is included in International Campaign to Ban Landmines - Cluster Munition Coalition’s (ICBL-CMC) 2020 report. Another issue that worries us is the increase in the victim count of landmines in Azerbaijan. The number of landmine victims in our country nears 3400 already. We observe new victims every month. The number of landmine victims in Azerbaijan is greater than the total of landmine victims in other regions of the South Caucasus. The unfortunate situation is that the count of victims increases every month and there are women, children, military personnel, and civilians among them. We aim by releasing this appeal to increase attention to the landmine problems in our country. The international community does not pay enough attention to the landmine problem we are facing. Another point to emphasize is, according to our organization’s statistics, after the 44-day war in 2020, 305 people have fallen victim to landmines in territories liberated from occupation and 57 of them have died. There are 47 civilians among the killed and 100 civilians have also been injured. Along with women and children, there are also journalists among the killed,” the expert stated.
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