THE FIVE firefighters caught in a minefield while tackling a fire in the buffer zone were safely evacuated on Saturday but the effort to recover the three Fire Service vehicles stuck there is a little more “complicated”, said UNFICYP spokesperson Rolando Gomez yesterday.
“It’s a complicated operation which will probably take a few days until we get records of where the mines are. The vehicles are well within a hazardous mine area. That could require a lot of support and careful coordination with the Turkish forces and UNIFICYP patrol and deminers who are familiar with these types of situations and have expertise,” he said.
“A risk assessment is being done to ascertain the feasibility. An aerial reconnaissance took place (on Sunday) during which photographs were taken of the location where the trucks remain. Our intention is to recover them to a position where they will be further removed,” said the UN spokesman.
“As you know, our chief priority was to get the firefighters and they managed to escape unharmed thanks to the expertise of our de-miners who are familiar with this type of operation,” he added.
Five firefighters found themselves stuck in a minefield in the dark on Saturday afternoon between Denia and Mammari villages. The crew were responding to a call to put out a fire deep in the buffer zone close to the Turkish-occupied areas when one of the three firefighting vehicles in the area triggered a mine.
Luckily it was the back end of the biggest fire truck which bore the brunt of the explosion, causing no injuries to the two firefighters in front, or the other three men in two separate vehicles nearby. The firefighters and their vehicles remained frozen until a UN demining team arrived on the scene.
The team had to use artificial lights and use the tracks made by the vehicles to evacuate the five from the minefield. They had no maps of the minefield to assist them in their rescue operation. The three vehicles remained on site.
In order to remove them, the UN will need a record of the minefield, which they hope the Turkish army will provide. Without it, removing the trucks will prove near impossible.
The Fire Service was left questioning yesterday how five of their team came close to losing their lives while fighting a fire in the buffer zone, for which the UN has sole responsibility.
Fire Service spokesman Leonidas Leonidou said they were in the process of investigating what went wrong. He said the firemen were busying fighting the fire when they saw a sign indicating a minefield. They tried to leave the area but in the process set off a mine.
“It’s a very serious issue. We don’t know yet what happened, we only have the firefighters’ oral testimonies. Maybe our procedures need changing. Maybe no one’s to blame. We have not apportioned blame on anyone. We’re waiting for the report.
According to Gomez, the firefighters had been informed beforehand by the UN patrol of the minefield’s existence, which he said was “clearly marked with triangular signs”.
Given that their focus was on putting out the fire, the firefighters might not have seen the signs, given it was dusk, and “smoke was pervading the area”, he added.
The UN spokesman noted that a Turkish forces liaison officer was also on hand on Saturday to assist in the rescue of the five men.
In the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s report on UNFICYP submitted last week to the UN Security Council, Ban noted that 70 of 73 minefields released to UNFICYP have been cleared, with more than 25,500 mines removed and 9.5 square kilometres cleared of mines.
Of the 13 mined areas released to UNFICYP by the Turkish Forces immediately prior to his last report, nine of which were inside and four outside the buffer zone, ten have been cleared. Clearance of the remaining fields is scheduled to be completed by the end of December 2010.
With the exception of one remaining Turkish Forces minefield south of Varosha and three National Guard minefields in the Laroujina pocket, all minefields within the buffer zone will have been cleared by the end of 2010.
“Without access to the remaining minefields in the buffer zone, or in the absence of agreement with the Turkish Forces or the National Guard to extend demining operations to areas outside of the buffer zone, United Nations demining operations will likely cease in February 2011,” said Ban.
The UN Development Programme (UNDP) established the Mine Action Centre in Cyprus (MACC) with funding from the European Union in 2003. The mine clearance activities in the buffer zone are supported by UNFICYP (UN peace-keeping force in Cyprus).
