Chalak Taha has spent most of the last 27 years searching the mountains for danger. Tucked among dry grasses on a steep hillside outside Wilyawa village in Sulaimani province, a member of his demining team has found one of potentially millions of landmines that still litter the Kurdistan Region.
All nearby movement stops. Lying on his belly in full protective gear on the blistering July day, Taha deftly removes the charge from a VS-50 anti-personnel blast mine in under a minute, holding both the device and its detonator aloft for the team to see.
This remote, barely populated area is a priority because it has already proven deadly. Two men died here, one in 1983 and another in 1991, and two young children, aged 7 and 9, were killed four years later. After their deaths the Kurdistan Regional Government asked the Mines Advisory Group to decontaminate the hills.
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Source: Kurdistan24