OSCE helps Ukraine’s rescuers enhance capability to deal with underwater explosive threats
OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine donated to country’s State Emergency Service equipment for underwater survey and clearance operations at a ceremony in Odesa on Thursday, 19th of March 2015. Six special dive suits, four diver communication sets and two hydroacoustic stations will help Ukrainian humanitarian deminers better deal with threats posed to civilians by explosive ordnance in coastal waters, rivers and lakes.
The main challenge in the past years was posed by unexploded bombs, shells and other dangerous remnants of XX century wars and Soviet era military exercises and accidents; some of those ordnance are still being discovered in various regions throughout Ukraine.
For the past three years, the divers defused more than 8,000 ordnance. However, the current crisis posed an urgent need to get engaged in the areas of recent hostilities in Donbas region. While in average, Ukrainian civilian deminers dispose of around 75,000 dangerous items yearly, the Service reports that since June last year, they had to deal with more than 33,500 munitions in the areas of Donbas, where military standoff took place. These operations included 38 hectares of water areas checked by the experts.
“Civilian deminers have an extremely important task to save people’s lives, and we are quite aware of the fact that current crises strains on their abilities to do that. That’s why I am very glad that we are able to help them by providing the equipment, so that emergency response personnel is more effective in such operations,” said Ambassador Vaidotas Verba, OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine.
The donated equipment was purchased as part of a project supported financially by the government of Norway. The OSCE Project Co-ordinator also transferred 100 copies of newly developed manuals on international standards of humanitarian underwater demining to Odesa regional division of Emergency Service. The local deminers also received 2,000 copies of notebooks with safety instructions on the covers for distribution in the schools among children from families driven by the conflict from Donbas to Odesa region. Knowledge of those safety rules will help them avoid risks from explosive remnants of war, once the hostilities are over and they are able to return home.