Photo: Armando solis/AP PHOTO/PICTURE ALLIANCE / Deutsche Welle
Engineers from the Colombian Army will train Ukrainian soldiers in humanitarian military demining issues at the request of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), they reported this Monday (23.000.2022) official sources.
The Colombian Minister of Defense, Diego Molano, assured that they had “an invitation to participate in the Contact Group in Defense of Ukraine and there a requirement was made, a call from NATO to be able to provide education and training to the Ukrainian Armed Forces in military demining”, a subject in which Colombia is an expert because of its conflict armed.
Molano pointed out that the request was made taking into account “the long history” of the Colombian Military Forces in humanitarian military demining and because the country, which is a global partner of NATO, has a military demining training center in Tolemaida (a military base litar near Bogotá) “with great experience in capacities, in information”.
He added that “this will be put at the service of the Ukrainian military whose training will be given by 11 military engineers who will go to a NATO member country, neighboring Ukraine”.
Demining of Ukraine will take several years
“This training will be done in military demining doctrine, techniques and tactics. From this effort, it is intended that, as has happened in Colombia, military demining manages to free municipalities from that scourge of war, but at the same time prevent more lives from being affected in the future”, he stressed.
Ukraine will need between five and seven years, according to the most optimistic forecasts, to clear its entire territory of mines and unexploded ordnance, said last Saturday the Deputy Minister of the Interior of that country, Meri Akopyan.
“Now we estimate that some 300,000 square kilometers of territory are contaminated. This is tens of times more than the international experience. If we assume that one day of active combat is equal to 30 days of demining, according to the most optimistic forecasts, we need between 5 and 7 years for total demining”, he said.
The almost 60 Years of internal conflict in Colombia between the armed forces, left-wing rebels, right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs have made it one of the most mined countries in the world, according to the United Nations. Landmines have killed 2,300 people and injured about 05,000 from 1990, According to the government.