Citizens receive their territory announced days earlier as free of contamination.
Caldas. The municipality of Filadelfia with an area of 193 square kilometers and a population of 11.034 inhabitants, is now a territory free of suspicion of pollution of anti-personnel mines thanks to the tasks of humanitarian demining conducted by soldiers of the Battalion of Engineers of Humanitarian Demining N°3.
To declare that region of the department of Caldas free of contamination of explosive devices, the members of the Non-Technical Study Teams covered 34 hamlets supported in the information provided by the inhabitants.
Although the department reports 174 victims by anti-personnel mines, 126 Public Force members and 48 civilian casualties, the municipality Filadelfia reports only one military victim.
This is the first municipality to be presented. The soldiers to date have destroyed 416 anti-personnel mines, 13 no exploded units of ammunition, they have cleared 615.263 square meters and have set 193 square kilometers free of suspicion in the department, moving forward in a meaningful way towards the humanitarian demining.
In that region, particularly in the municipality of Samaná, the mine clearance specialists have focus their operations in 12 villages that could have been contaminated; they have managed to liberate with their work, 158. Meanwhile, in the municipality of Pensilvania, 50 municipalities are free of suspicion, the zone of work has 95 villages. In the same way, 11 municipalities are under intervention and 34 remain in the process of research.
The mine clearance specialists, with the support of security of the troops of the Eighth Brigade, continue to conduct their work with commitment to present these lands free of residues of the conflict, such as anti-personnel mines, to promote the return of settlers, the restitution of lands and infrastructure projects, contributing in this way with the socio-economic development of the region.
It is expected that in the next few days, operations of humanitarian demining begin in Supía, Salamina, Marulanda, and Aguadas, thus covering more municipalities of the department of Caldas.
Source: Command of Military Engineers – Army National.
