Sri Lanka is moving to increase the number of trained military personnel deployed on mine clearance to 500, as part of an effort to accelerate the national demining programme.
The decision was discussed at a meeting held on Tuesday at the Parliament complex, chaired by Minister of Housing, Construction and Water Supply Dr. Susil Ranasinghe, under whose ministry the demining programme is run.
Deputy Minister of Defence Major General (Retd.) Aruna Jayasekara, Army Commander Lieutenant General Nilantha Premaratne and the Director of the National Demining Programme were among those who attended.
Alongside the increase in personnel, the meeting addressed the resources and support needed to speed up clearance work, Ada Derana reported.
Aiming for landmine-free status
The programme is currently recognised as one of the most successful demining initiatives in the world, and officials expect the expanded effort to help declare Sri Lanka a landmine-free country within the next few years.
Mine clearance remains one of the more consequential pieces of unfinished business from the civil war, which ended in 2009. Contaminated land in the Northern and Eastern Provinces constrains resettlement, farming and construction, and clearance is a precondition for releasing military-held land back to civilian owners.
The work has been sustained in large part by foreign funding. Japan committed more than US$1.34 million for humanitarian demining in the north and east in May, funding that was expected to allow over 3,100 displaced people to return home. Clearance has also unlocked individual sites, including a Jaffna church that reopened after mines were removed from its grounds.
Raising the military’s demining strength to 500 would shift a larger share of the effort onto state capacity, alongside the international operators and non-governmental organisations that have carried out much of the clearance to date.
