亞美尼亞東北部一處與亞塞拜然接鄰的愛格和維村（Aygehovit），人口數約3400人，土地上遍佈著金色麥田與青蔥牧地和果園，不過底下卻潛藏爆炸性的隱憂。當地曾經發生卡拉巴赫戰爭，儘管戰事已於1994年終止，不過由於當時大量埋佈地雷，到現在很多地方還是被列為禁區。交戰的軍民於衝突期間在兩國交界的山區與平原，密集佈雷；現今警戒區仍有450公頃，等於有半數的村民曝露在危險之中。
村落行政副首長Asibekian表示，村民缺乏安全的土地謀生，讓他們的生活非常困苦，但他知道，若要全數撤除地雷比登天還難。在1991至1994 年間爆發的這起戰爭中，起初是由兩國志願軍著手埋雷工作，爾後由軍方接手，由於地雷是採隨機埋佈，因此幾乎沒有精確的埋設計劃與地圖，導致當地民眾必須面對收拾不了的殘局。
亞美尼亞自1994年起，已累積通報有398起誤觸地雷炸傷的案例，其中三分之一的人因此喪命。人道排雷計劃主持人葛理哥利安（Grigorian）指出，人們知道哪裡可能會有觸雷危險，因此受害者人數已逐漸減少，不過仍無法完全避掉意外。他說，所有危險地區皆已標示「當心地雷！」，但部分標示卻被拆去作為鏟子或斧頭，「對此我們實在無能為力。」
The village of Aygehovit on Armenia's north-eastern border with Azerbaijan is home to 3,400 people and blessed with wheat fields, green pastures and orchards. The trouble is that because of mines sowed in the Karabakh conflict that ended in 1994, many of them are inaccessible. During the hostilities, the lands and mountains between Aygehovit and an Azerbaijani village on the other side of the border were repeatedly mined. There are still mines on around 450 hectares of land, roughly half of the village’s plots and gardens.
Aharon Asilbekian, deputy head of the village administration, said life was hard for the villagers, because they could not use the lands - but accepted that it was virtually impossible to have the area de-mined. Between 1991 and 1994, the areas were mined first by volunteer units and later soldiers from both sides, who rarely drew maps with the coordinates of the explosives, which makes things much harder for local people.
Since 1994, Armenia has recorded 398 cases of people blown up by mines. In about a third of them were killed. “The number of victims has been going down with time, as people know where there may be landmines, though accidents are not totally avoidable,” said Armen Grigorian, coordinator of the humanitarian mine-clearing programme. Signs saying “Danger! Landmines!” have been put up in almost all dangerous areas, but in some places they have been taken down for spades or axes,” he said. “And it's impossible to stop them doing this.”
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