One of the oddest explosives discovered by the Saudi Masam Project in Yemen was a bean can that the Iran-backed Houthi militias had booby-trapped to form a landmine.
Ousama al-Gosaibi, the program manager for the Masam Project, told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Houthis had designed the explosive in a way that it would explode the moment someone approached it.
Al-Gosaibi is the first Arab and Saudi to earn a United Nations degree in demining. The Masam Project has been working on removing mines in war-torn Yemen since 2018. The teams have so far removed over 386,000 explosives that have been planted arbitrarily by the Houthis.
Nearly 85 percent of the mines that have been removed by Masam were locally made and designed to inflict the greatest harm possible to civilians, said al-Gosaibi.
Masam teams are waging a war against the Houthis mines, he added.
As of the first week of February, the teams have removed 386,282 Houthi mines and explosives.
The teams, he added, are not removing traditional mines that are internationally recognized, but devices that have been developed by the Houthis.
Furthermore, he clarified that Yemen has also had to deal with mines that were planted during the past six wars. Those were traditional mines, but the Houthis introduced locally produced ones.
The most common mines discovered by Masam are ones that are designed to appear as regular everyday objects, such as rocks, bean cans, pieces of metal, and even palm tree trunks.
The Houthis would plant the explosives in civilian areas, such as farms, streets, schools, fields and even water sources, al-Gosaibi said.
The militias have planted explosives in 18 Yemeni provinces and Masam is operating in eleven: Sanaa, al-Hodeidah, Aden, al-Bayda, al-Jawf, Lahj, Marib, Shabwa, Taiz, al-Dhale and Saada. They have so far cleared 44,122,922 square meters of territory.
Masam is cooperating with the Yemen Executive Mine Action Center (YEMAC) to save as many innocent lives as possible from the danger of mines and explosives in liberated regions, added al-Gosaibi.
The Yemenis have proven their professionalism and competence in mine removal and they will pave the way for the development of specialized and experienced cadres that can carry out this humanitarian work in the future, he remarked.
Masam boasts 525 employees on the ground, including 32 teams operating in liberated regions. They have trained 450 Yemenis and are overseeing their work, revealed al-Gosaibi.
One of the main challenges facing Masam is the fact that the Houthis have planted mines arbitrarily, leaving no maps to indicate their locations, he explained.
Masam has had to rely on field sweeps and information collected on the ground, such as from citizens and unfortunately, when explosives are set off, which is a nearly daily occurrence.
Compounding the challenges are Yemen’s treacherous terrain and the Houthis’ ongoing planting of mines. In fact, some areas that have been cleared by Masam have again been planted with the explosives because the military operations have not stopped, al-Gosaibi lamented.
