Sappers in Chechnya clear one and a half hectares of farmland

The experts of the Ministry for Emergencies (MfE) of Russia from the Special-Purpose Centre named "Leader" have started their work in Chechnya and already cleared 1.5 ha of agricultural land of mines and all kinds of bombs; the land belongs to the state farm "Zarya" (Dawn) located near Grozny.

A source in the Republic's MfE said in his conversation with the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that it is a very hard work, during which sappers have to palpate literally every centimetre of land."

According to his story, sappers will stay in Chechnya till the end of May and will manage to inspect and demine over 50 hectares of land belongs to the state farm "Zarya".

In total, this state farm has 180 hectares of farmland in need of demining. Thus, the MfE sappers will hardly cope this year with the problems of this one farm only.

"As far as I know, till the end of this year, Russian MfE sappers plan to clear 122 hectares of land. If we remember that in the territory of our republic we need to demine over 24,000 hectares of farmland, we see that it' very little, but still, we're pleased with the fact that the demining process in Chechnya has started," said the source.

The employee of the MfE thinks said that if demining of the Republic's territory will continue at the same rate, the whole process can take some 12-15 years. "This problem should be addressed in Moscow. It is necessary to involve the army and other power agencies. It would be quite nice to start training sappers here from among local residents. Then, the demining expenses would be smaller by times, and all the problems could be solved more operatively and with account of the situation," he believes.