Safe mulberry harvest in Nagorno Karabakh

In 2010 HALO cleared an anti-tank (AT) minefield that had been laid within a mulberry orchard during the war in the area of Amaras, Martuni region, Nagorno Karabakh.

The mines were laid in the passes between the trees to prevent tanks from advancing on military positions located to the south of the orchard. After the war ended the mines prevented local vehicles from accessing the orchard to collect the annual mulberry harvest.

HALO mine clearance teams cleared 26 hectares of land within the orchard finding two AT mines and nine items of UXO. Over 40 families from the Amaras area have directly benefited from this clearance. The photos show one such family, the Sarkissians, collecting mulberries in ground cleared by HALO. Marina Sarkissian explains:

Now HALO has cleared the orchard I feel safe collecting the mulberry harvest. We can safely drive our trucks into the orchard to collect the mulberries.