The demining project in Wadi Araba and Aqaba started on 26th June 2006 after the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between NPA and NCDR on the 16th March 2006 to help Jordan in removing all mines in the country, building the national capacity and assisting Jordan in achieving the obligations of Ottawa Treaty in achieving Jordan free of mines by May 2009.
The programme has trained Jordanians who are residence of Wadi Araba area to clear their land. The project has currently 120 employees in total in different sectors such as administration, field support, manual deminers, technical deminers and mine detection dogs and mechanical operators.
The project’s goal is to remove 52 000 landmines that have been planted by the Israeli Defence Forces in the 1960’s. NPA’s main objective in Jordan is to enhance the individual’s and communities’ opportunity and ability to control their own lives where threat from landmines is neither a factor nor impediment to development.
The project was established after several meetings HRH Prince Mired Bin Raad made with many donor countries and agencies in order to sign an agreement with NPA to implement the project and to secure the funds required for the project. The majority of funding for the project has been received from Norway. In addition funding has been received from Germany, Japan, ASEZA and Finland with a total of 9 million USD.
The duration of the project is for two years and the manual demining part of it will end by the middle of November leaving some residual verification work to be done mechanically and by the Mine Detection Dogs which is anticipated to finish by January 2008.
The NCDR set up a Quality Assurance and Control team to work together with NPA on assuring the quality of the work. In Addition to the Quality Assurance and Control team, NCDR has established a special committee to hand over the cleared land back to its owners.
Concurrently, NPA commenced the technical survey on the Jordanian-Syrian border on 5th November 2007. The technical survey will assure the information NPA has on the 93 minefields which make the 108 km long minefield. NPA will work in close cooperation with the NCDR and the Royal Engineering Corps to complete the task. The technical survey is an ongoing process until final completion of the project and precedes the mine clearance operations.
The NPA Programme Manager, Mr Stephen Bryant, stated that he is confident the successes NPA has had to date can be emulated in the northern border project. Adding that NPA has an excellent team of experienced personnel that are committed to removing this last remaining mined area in Jordan, that NPA has the full support of the NCDR and the Jordanian military along with the necessary commitment of the donors, namely, Norway, Canada, European Commission, Germany and Japan.