Location: Southern Turkey
Website: http://www.mineaction.org/
Type: International
In response to the threat posed by IEDs and other ERW, UNMAS deployed to southern Turkey in August 2015 in order to provide assistance in Syria.
Their initiatives have included clearance as well as risk education, particularly important for those returning to Syria.
14 tonnes of ERW have already been destroyed in Kobane on the Syrian-Turkey border allowing significant amounts of land and buildings to be declared safe for use again for the community. Further, it means explosives cannot be used in the creation of IEDs to be used in Syria and bordering areas.
Importantly, their work has also included victim assistance, which allows survivors of IEDs and other explosives to receive the help they need.
Given the nature of the conflict in Syria and the scale of the IED threat, clearance of IEDs has not been possible in most of the worst impacted areas. Therefore, UNMAs has focused on training to improve local capabilities in responding to the threat.
This profile is part of AOAV’s investigation into counter-IED (C-IED) actors around the globe. To see the list of all C-IED actors recorded by AOAV, see here. To see those engaged in the Middle East, the Sahel, North Africa or other highly impacted countries please see here, here, here, and here respectively. This research was made possible by funding from the NATO Counter Improvised Explosive Devices Centre of Excellence (C-IED COE). To read the full report, ‘Addressing the threat posed by IEDs: National, Regional and Global Initiatives’, see here.
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