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CNN Live Saturday

Afghans Clear Their Country of Landmines

Aired November 24, 2001 - 15:10   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JONATHAN MANN, CNN ANCHOR: CNN's Harris Whitbeck takes a closer look at a very dangerous line of work in Bagram, Afghanistan.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Abdul Rahman kneels by the side of one of the main highways to Kabul, carefully digging and prodding the earth.

A metal detector aids him in looking for his prize, a landmine hidden in the soil. Nearby, one of Abdul's colleagues has found an antitank mine. He ties an electric charge to it and from a distance, blows it up.

It is dangerous, nerve-wracking work, but Abdul has been doing it for eight years. He needs the $100 he makes each month to support the 18 members of his family.

"I want to feed my family," he says, "but most importantly I want to help clear mines, to help the six million people affected by landmines to be able to return to their homes to restart their lives."

(on camera): Decades of war in Afghanistan have left millions of mines planted throughout the country, which makes the work of the deminers not only slow and tedious, but perhaps never-ending.

Some organizations involved in demining the country, like the United Nations, refuse to even guess at how many landmines might be planted. One, the Halo Trust from Great Britain, says the work is made even more difficult because there are few reliable ways of knowing where the mines were placed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The impression that people have in the West about minefields and proper recording of the minefields and so on, that does not exist here. So it's a very random and bizarre mine- laying, you know, in this country.

WHITBECK: The U.S. air campaign and the most recent fighting between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban have added to the problem. Tons of unexploded ordinance litter the countryside, posing more risks to the population, and making Abdul Rahman's work even more daunting.

Harris Whitbeck, CNN, Bagram, Afghanistan. (END VIDEOTAPE)

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