From 19 June to 3 July, our project manager in Syria travelled to North East Syria (NES) as part of the mine action project for the benefit of the population and displaced people. The project's main aim is to help improve the safety of the living environment of communities and displaced people in NES, through specialised clearance operations and risk awareness raising.
In practical terms, this means carrying out clearance operations in the governorate of Ar-Raqqa on the basis of information gathered during non-technical surveys and EORE sessions, building the capacity of local teams and consolidating field processes, promoting awareness of the risks of explosive ordnance by strengthening the EORE (explosive ordnance risk education) teams, developing a capacity to operate in areas controlled by the SDF, and building the technical and organisational capacity of the local teams in the NES office.
The mission began with a visit to the local office in Erbil, which was an opportunity to discuss the launch of the clearance project in Iraq, compare the NES and Iraq projects, understand how the Erbil office works and learn about the security context in NES.
Our project manager continued her mission by visiting the project's activities. First came an introduction to confined and hazardous space training at the base. This was a full-scale exercise simulating an intervention on the roof of an inaccessible building. She then travelled to Lake Tabqa, about an hour's drive from the city of Raqqa, to attend a day of training. The lake is an ideal training area for divers because it has less current than the Euphrates and is deep enough for scuba exercises.
A future project along the lines of the current one is also being drafted. The main aim of this mission was in fact to draft the new project, which will allow our local team to specialise and to keep training. Meetings were held with the NES field team to provide technical detail on the project, and in particular on clearance specialisms in hazardous and confined spaces and underwater. The mission closed with a meeting with the local authorities.
The project was carried out with the support of:
