It is believed that across the vast expanse of Ukraine there are 174,000 km2 that are contaminated by land mines.
It is an area of land larger than England, Wales and Northern Ireland combined.
In the war-scarred Kharkiv region, warning signs occasionally appear next to barren, barren terrain that were once front lines.
Even rarer is seeing demining teams sweeping small, taped-off areas with their metal detectors. A literal scratch of the surface.
More landmines have been found in the Kharkiv region than anywhere else in Ukraine.
This northeastern part of the country, near the Russian border, has been occupied and liberated over the past year.
On February 24, 2022, Russia launched its full-scale invasion, seizing swaths of territory in the Kharkiv region, all the while trying to capture the city of the same name itself.
In May they lost the battle for the second largest city in Ukraine. In September they were surprised by a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
The Russians deployed land mines both to defend their positions and to slow down the Ukrainians. After leaving in a hurry, they left a deadly footprint.
In the small town of Balakliya, on a piece of land next to an apartment block, Oleksandr Romanents’ team has already found six antipersonnel mines.
They had previously discovered around 200 near there.
“My family calls me every morning to tell me to be careful where I step,” he says. “One of our guys lost his foot last year.”
The day after we spoke, another member of his team was injured by a mine.
Since September, at least 27 people have been killed and 118 more injured in the Kharkiv region alone, according to authorities.
More than 55,000 explosives have been found in the area.
Regional authorities call deminers like Oleksandr “heroes”, but there is deep frustration that their efforts are dwarfed by the scale of the problem.
What they want to find are the calls”butterfly mines“, the most common in the area. They are only 8-10 cm wide, have a propeller shape and are dispersed from a rocket.
They are prohibited under international law due to the indiscriminate way in which they can injure and kill civilians.
That hasn’t stopped them from being used in this war.
When Serhiy helped a friend load his car with a small crane, he didn’t pay much attention to a nearby apricot tree.
When she took a step towards him, she found herself falling backwards from an explosion.
“I thought maybe a tire had blown,” he recalls from his hospital bed in nearby Izyum.
“Then I looked at my foot and saw that my fingers were missing, the sole was broken, it was bleeding.”
Serhiy says that his house was also destroyed by the fighting.
“I used to be healthy, walk on both feet, do things, drive my car. In an instant, I had no home and no foot.”
Serhiy is under the care of Yuriy Kuznetsov, an experienced trauma surgeon. He is a portly, framed man with a tired but determined expression.
During the occupation of Russia last year, he continued to work and was the only doctor left in the Izyum hospital.
He says he treats landmine victims every week.
“Unfortunately, in most cases, an encounter with unknown explosives ends tragically,” he explains.
“Losing a limb or having other types of injuries is not the worst outcome. For example, last week, we had two patients who discovered a mine. One is here, the other died.”
Entire wings of Yuriy’s hospital are destroyed. Windows are missing along the corridor and the buildings are surrounded by mine signs.
“Before the war, like everyone else, I worried a lot about the material things in life,” says Yuriy.
“Now we understand how transitory everything is. Peace and health are what matters.”
Last week, Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that 724 people have been victims of Russian mines since the start of the invasion, and 226 of them have died.
Izyum and its surroundings is one of the most mined places, but the image of the city is cloudy.
Human Rights Watch has accused both sides of using illegal antipersonnel mines here. Kyiv responded that, in its defense against the Russian invasion, it complies with international law.
According to the World Bank, which provides low-interest loans to countries that need cash, demining Ukraine will cost $37.4 billion.
Kyiv is trying to convince as many countries as possible to help and that, in his words, “it won’t take decades” to remove the explosives.
Considering how they’ve spent the last 70 years clearing World War II mines, it’s an approach that will require optimism.
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BBC-NEWS-SRC: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-internacional-65241219, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-04-24 08:10:06
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