KABUL - Afghanistan’s United Nations-backed mine action programme, the world’s largest, said that it documented a record number of its personnel being killed or injured last year.

In a news release, the Mine Action Programme of Afghanistan (MAPA) said 34 of its personnel were killed and 27 others injured in 37 security incidents.

“The total of 34 de-miners killed in 2014 is almost equal to the total number over the previous four years combined,” said MAPA, in the news last week. “In just two attacks, one on a project near a copper mine in Logar province in June and a second in Helmand province in December, 19 MAPA de‐miners were killed and nine were injured.”

Afghanistan has witnessed widespread and indiscriminate use of mines and munitions over more than 30 years of conflict, making it one of the most heavily mined countries in the world. The UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) has supported MAPA since 2002.

In a news release condemning the 13 December attack on the de-miners in southern Helmand province, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghansitan, Nicholas Haysom, said, “The deliberate targeting and killing of de-miners removing explosive ordnance in order to make Afghanistan a safer place is particularly odious and totally unacceptable.”

Highlighting the critical work thousands of de-miners do in Afghanistan, MAPA said the preservation of MAPA’s neutrality is key to its continued services to communities in the country.

“The clearance of IEDs [improvised explosive devices] where fighting continues is not the responsibility of MAPA and it has never conducted such clearance,” the de-mining noted. “However, when fighting comes to an end and internally displaced people return to their villages and homes to face the danger of explosive hazards left behind, they often and justifiably request their lands to be cleared.”

MAPA, which comprises 50 national and international partners, has operated in Afghanistan for the last 26 years and, along with its partners, has successfully delivered mine action services across Afghanistan including clearance of over 23,000 hazardous areas, resulting in a decline in the number of civilian causalities by almost 80 per cent.