Mine Affairs: A percentage to the contaminated and disinfected areas around Iraq

Security

18-06-2022, 21:30

INA - BAGHDAD

The Department of Mine Affairs in the Ministry of Environment announced on Saturday, the percentage of contaminated and disinfected areas around Iraq.

The new non-technical survey has been completed and a re-survey has been made again in Mosul, as only one area remains in the urban district, in which the survey will be conducted this week or next week, according to the director general of the department, Dhafir Mahmoud Khalaf, to the Iraqi News Agency - INA.

Khalaf noted that, "the contaminated areas have been cleared in Nineveh, and the remaining contaminated areas are few, as we will finish this file when we calculate the area accurately, because it requires re-survey again, and the last survey was completed with the exception of an area in Hatra district for the disinfection rate was more than 60%."

"The remaining contaminated area at the level of Iraq is 2,700² kilometers. The surveys were conducted on this area last year, and we discovered only in Basra by itself there is more than 20 km and an additional 20 million meters only clustered, and this area is discovered for the purposes of investment projects," he included.

The director general of the department stressed that "work is underway on 350² million meters of the total contaminated area, with the efforts of the government, donor countries and the United Nations," adding that, "We submitted projects to the Ministry of Planning in the event of approval. If these projects are approved, a qualitative change will occur in the areas installed as dangerous, and then we announce the cleansed governorates."

Regarding the disinfected areas, Khalaf said, "The disinfected area in Najaf is about 6 kilometers, in Karbala two kilometers, and in Kirkuk is about 7 kilometers."

"A new polluted area was discovered and work is underway, as in the southern region by itself, more than 850² kilometers were launched as disinfection operations, and about 39² kilometers were removed from them, in addition to proven dangerous areas that were cleared in Basra," he highlighted.