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Lebanon

More UAE demining personnel arrive in Lebanon

The third batch of UAE Armed Forces field engineering personnel arrived yesterday in the Lebanese capital joining operations already underway in Southern Lebanon. The new batch will take over from batch 1 and 2 to undertake demining operations in Southern Lebanon.

UAE's current demining efforts in Lebanon are carried out within the UAE Programme to Support and Rebuild Lebanon and are line with the initiative launched last year by President H.H Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan to clear Southern Lebanon of mines, cluster bomblets, blind bombs and other types of unexploded munitions in the wake of Israel's 33-day war on Hezbollah in summer 2006.

More than 2.1 million cluster bomblets have been, according to certain sources, launched or dropped by Israeli forces during the last three days of war. Up to a million cluster bomblets discharged by Israel in its conflict with Hezbollah remain unexploded in southern Lebanon, according to the United Nations. Thirty UAE demining teams are currently in Southern Lebanon clear an area approximately 4 million sq meters of contaminated land.

(Emirates News Agency, WAM)