PEJA, Kosovo (AP) – As an English teacher in Ukraine, Anastasiia Minchukova never thought she would have to learn how to identify and defuse explosives. But there she wore a face shield, was armed with a landmine detector, and ventured into a field littered with hazard warnings.
Russia’s war in Ukraine has taken 20-year-old Minchukova and five other women to Kosovo, where they are taking a hands-on course on clearing landmines and other hazards that may remain hidden around the country once fighting ends.
“There is a great demand for people who know how to do demining work because the war will be over soon,” Minchukova said. “We believe there is still so much to be done.”
The 18-day training camp will be held at a compound in the western town of Peja, where a Malta-based company offers regular courses for job seekers, companies working in former war zones, humanitarian organizations and government agencies.
Kosovo was the scene of a devastating armed conflict between ethnic Albanian separatists and Serb forces in 1998-99 that killed about 13,000 people and left thousands of unexploded mines to be cleared. Praedium Consulting Malta offer includes bombed and derelict buildings as well as vegetation areas.
Instructor Artur Tigani, who tailored the curriculum for the Ukrainian environment, said he was happy to share the experiences of his small Balkan nation with Ukrainian women. Although 23 years have passed, “we still have fresh memories of the difficulties we faced when we started clearing Kosovo,” Tigani said.
Tigani is a highly qualified and experienced mine operations officer who served as an engineer in the former Yugoslav Army in the 1980s. He has been deployed to his native Kosovo, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Congo, Rwanda and Kenya and conducted training missions in Syria and Iraq.
During a class last week, he guided his trainees through a makeshift minefield before moving into a makeshift outdoor classroom that featured a giant board with various samples of explosives and mines.
While it’s impossible to gauge just how riddled Ukraine is with mines and unexploded ordnance, the aftermath of other conflicts suggests the problem will be huge.
“In many parts of the world, explosive remnants of war continue to kill and maim thousands of civilians each year during and long after the end of active hostilities. The majority of victims are children,” the International Committee of the Red Cross said at a UN conference in December.
“Locating (duds) amidst debris and picking them out from a variety of everyday objects, many made of similar material, is a dangerous, arduous and often extremely time-consuming task,” the Red Cross said.
Mine Action Review, a Norwegian organization that monitors clearance efforts worldwide, reported that 56 countries were contaminated with unexploded ordnance in October, with Afghanistan, Cambodia and Iraq bearing the heaviest burden, followed by Angola, Bosnia, Thailand, Turkey and the United States Yemen.
Thousands of civilians are believed to have died in Ukraine since Russia invaded on February 24. Russian forces have bombed cities and towns across the country, reducing many to rubble.
Military analysts say Russian forces appear to have used anti-personnel and anti-vehicle mines, while Ukraine used anti-tank mines to try to prevent the Russians from gaining ground.
Because Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 are banned from leaving their country and are the most committed to defense, the women wanted to help in any way they could, despite the risks involved in demining.
“It’s dangerous all over Ukraine, even if you’re in a relatively safe region,” said Minchukova, who is from central Ukraine.
Another Ukrainian student, Yuliia Katelik, 38, took her three children to safety in Poland at the start of the war. She went back to Ukraine and then took part in demining training to make sure it’s safe for her children when they return home to the eastern city of Kramatorsk, where more than 50 people were killed in a rocket attack on a crowded train station this month became.
Katelik said her only wish was to be reunited with her family and see “the end of this nightmare”. Knowing how to spot booby traps that could destroy their lives all over again is a necessary skill, she said.
“Acutely, probably as a mother, I understand there’s a problem, and it’s quite serious, especially for the kids,” Katelik said.
Minchukova, who wore military fatigues, said she doubts normal life as they all knew it before the war will ever fully return.
“What am I missing? Peace,” she said. “I dream of peace, of sleeping in my bed without worrying about going to bomb shelters all the time. I miss the people I lost.”
The Kosovo Training Center plans to work with other groups of Ukrainian women both in Peja and in Ukraine.
“We also plan to go to Ukraine very soon and start conducting theater-of-war courses there,” Tigani said.
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