Iran's Defense Ministry has cleared over 27,000 hectares in border regions infested with landmines by Iraqi forces during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

A senior defense ministry official said that the mine-clearance operations were conducted by Iranian experts in the year to March 2007 in five border provinces.

Saeedi added that 1,000 specialists are currently involved in clearing minefields.

Saeedi stated that demining in Iran is a daunting task becasue of the shortage of trained staff, lack of modern facilities and poor cooperation from those countries with cutting-edge equipment to clear fields planted with mines.

The official put the areas sown with anti-personnel devices in western Ilam province bordering Iraq at about 550,000 hectares of which some 300,000 hectares have been cleared since the end of the war in 1988.

Two people have lost their lives in a mine explosion in this western province recently. as per official statistics. More than 2,000 people have been either maimed or killed by mine explosions in Ilam in recent years.

MKH/HAR