Environment Ministry excludes “mines” and identifies causes for Basra explosion

Security

1-01-2022, 21:17

INA - BASRA

Ministry of Environment identified on Saturday, two possible causes for Basra explosion, which killed 6 martyrs in Rumaila desert earlier in the day, while ruling out that it was caused by a mine.

"Basra is one of the most governorates in Iraq and the world exposed to the danger of war remnants as a result of the wars that have passed through the country. 95% of them are mines,” said the Director-General of Mine Affairs in the Ministry of Environment Dhafer Al-Saadi, followed by the Iraqi News Agency (INA).

He added, ”The projectiles and precipitations are no less dangerous, and the problem is that there are no maps that determine their locations and are detected through surveys, as approximately 10 million square meters are discovered annually,”

"The recent explosion in Basra governorate was caused by two reasons, either a missile or a large shell, and not a large mine. That is why it caused a high number of victims, and the investigation is ongoing to clarify the main and direct cause,” he explained.

He pointed out that "the area of the explosion is indicated to us as an area of war remnants (air fallout) and not an area of mines, meaning it may be rockets, large artillery shells, or cluster bombs,”

”Most of the mines on Iraqi soil were planted by the former regime during the wars that passed on Iraq, and unfortunately the maps that were drawn up for those mines were lost after the fall of the regime, so we have no choice but to rely on surveys," he noted.