Hezbollah asks de-mining team to leave area in southern Lebanon

Sep 22, 2010, 14:31 GMT

Beirut - Members of the Lebanese Shiite Movement Hezbollah prevented a British humanitarian organization from conducting mine removal operations in southern Lebanon Wednesday and asked the group to leave, reported local radio stations.

Hezbollah members told workers with the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) that the 'area was not set for de-mining,' the reports said. The group had been working near the market town of Nabatiyeh, 54 kilometres south of Beirut.

According to security sources in southern Lebanon, the MAG team contacted the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), which told the de-miners to leave the village and let the LAF handle the situation.

The municipal head of Nabatiyeh, Kassem Olleyek, has asked the MAG team to return and continue its work.

Nabatiyeh residents said there had been a dispute between the MAG team and local contractors before Hezbollah intervened and asked the MAG team to leave.

During the July 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, Israel dropped more than 1 million cluster bombs throughout southern Lebanon. Many never detonated.

According to UN estimates, cluster bombs can still be found across roughly 80 percent of the farm land and forests in southern Lebanon. The bombs have been found underground, in between rocks, in waste pipes, on trees and in dry stone walls.

Since the war ended in August 2006, 51 civilians have died because of cluster bombs. A further 340 have been injured.

According to estimates by the Lebanese army, by 2014 southern Lebanon should be free of cluster bombs - if there are no financial cuts to the minesweeping squad.

MAG says it is a neutral and impartial humanitarian organization. It has worked in 35 countries since 1989 and currently has operations in Angola, Burundi, Cambodia, Chad, Cyprus, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Laos, Lebanon, the Republic of Congo, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Vietnam.