5 April 2010 - “For a deminer, the first mistake is also the last one. There is no second chance.”

So says Haji Aziz, from the Mine Action Coordination Centre of Afghanistan (MACCA) as he stares into the sky..

He’s been a deminer for fifteen years, that’s experience no one can easily forget.

“My story as a deminer began in 1992, during the first days of the civil war in Afghanistan. I was living in Kabul, at that time, and, in one of those battles that ravaged the city, our house was burnt. I had to escape to my homeland, in Jajai Aryab, a district of Paktya province, near the Pakistani border,” he said, diving into his memories.

Jobless, at that time, he followed the advice of his uncle who told him to leave for Peshawar, in Pakistan, were he attended computer courses, as well as English classes.

He finally learnt English, but his mind was attracted by something else other than computers, more important and more dangerous as well.

At the time Afghan Technical Consultants, a demining NGO based in Peshawar was launching “Operation Salaam”, a vast demining campaign in Afghanistan.

After decades of wars and invasions, the situation was critical and hundreds of thousands of mines were killing civilians every day.

“I asked one of my relatives to introduce me to this NGO,” said Haji Aziz. “Then things moved extremely fast. After a 25-days training, I was sent to Kabul, on my first demining operation.”

In Kabul in 1993 the civil war had almost completely destroyed the city.

In the smoking ruins of the ancient capital of the Afghan kings, fights, assassinations, torture and mass murders were the reality of the darkest hours of Afghanistan.

Into this extremely difficult context Haji Aziz started his first appointment in Zindan in Kabul province.

“The first day, I was not feeling really comfortable,” he said. “Hopefully, I was still a beginner, and all the beginners had to start working with a more experienced deminer, as a partner.”

“After 17 days of work, I heard my first blast, in the minefield. It was a Russian mine and a colleague had been seriously injured,” he added.

After each accident the deminers usually rest for one day as a chance for reflection and recovery but for Haji Aziz such days became days of doubt.

“I was very afraid, but I had to continue. The area we were clearing was the only footpath between two villages. So, after one day, we went back into the field.”

A few days later, Haji Aziz found his first mine, which had been made in Russia.

Carefully, he started excavating it and then he discovered that other mines were also planted in the same area, all in a row.

When he controlled the explosion of the first one, two more mines exploded.

During the same day, he discovered 20 mines of the same type.

And so Haji Aziz became a deminer.

Later in 1995 Aziz was sent to the east of Afghanistan close to Jalalabad.

Once again, his mission was critical: clearing the area of Sheikh Misri, in order to create a safe place for Afghan returnees coming home from Pakistan.

“This is when I get seriously injured,” he said. “I was excavating a mine, in a pent, and at one point the mine went out from its hole and rolled towards a ditch. Instinctively, I jumped on the ground, and the mine exploded. I was hurt in various parts of my body.”

Finally, Haji Aziz was rescued by a colleague working nearby.

“I was very lucky,” he said. “Others didn’t have my luck.”

One year later in Gardez two demining teams were working close to each other with Haji Aziz a part of the operation.

“I was a part of the second team. We were busy and concentrating on our work when we heard a huge explosion. We knew the first team was hit by a mine. We lost a colleague that day. He was also a friend.”

At this point of his story, Aziz stopped talking for a while. Sometimes, silence has more significance than useless words.

“After this incident, I decided to resign,” he confessed. “I went back to my homeland, to see my father. After a while my father asked me for some money to buy flour. I realized that I couldn’t afford it. I had to go back to work.”

This time, Aziz was sent to Kandahar, one of the most intense experiences of his life.

It was 1997 when the southern city was the stronghold of the new Taliban regime.

“This is also when I experienced the best moment of my deminer’s life. I was called in emergency on a location near to the airport. A child, seriously injured, was trapped in a minefield,” he said. “When I arrived there, first of all I saw nothing. Everything was dusty, full of smoke. I started shouting, and then I saw a young face emerging from the dust. It was the kid.”

With infinite precautions, Aziz walked towards the child. The situation was worse than expected. His leg was cut, and he was bleeding a lot. He provided him with first aid and tried as much as he could to stop the bleeding and then evacuated the child, on his shoulder. Finally, thanks to his efforts, the child survived.

“Yes, it was the best moment,” he added, with a smile.

For years, Aziz continued to perform his duties, with courage and determination. He saved two other children in minefields, cleared thousands of square metres of contaminated areas, and provided hope to hundreds of people living nearby, mainly farmers, who were allowed to restart their farming activities, after the demining operations.

He finally retired from the field in 2003. He was promoted team leader, then site supervisor and finally “associate operation officer” for MACCA in the North of the country. Now he has a clear vision about the future of demining in Afghanistan.

“By 2011, almost 70 per cent of the contaminated areas should be free of mines. This is a big achievement, the progresses we’ve realized since 20 years are huge,” he said.

“But we still have 40 civilians per month who die, due to landmines and other explosive devices. This is too much. The effort must continue.”

Ending his story on this conclusion, Haji Aziz is once again staring into space. Looking towards the place he belongs to: the fields to which he has dedicated his life to clearing of mines.

By Alexandre Brecher-Dolivet, UNAMA