On July 26, Mr. Massimiliano D’Antuono, Chargé d’Affaires of Italiy to Syria, Ms. Alessandra Piermattei, Head, Italian Agency for Development and Cooperation (AICS) for Lebanon and Syria, Ms. Fausta Genovese, Programme Expert, Italian Agency for Development and Cooperation (AICS), visited the Daraya district of Damascus, accompanied by Francesca Chiaudani, Programme Officer/Mine Action Sub- sector coordinator at UNMAS, to observe UNMAS Explosive Ordnance Clearance Project implemented by the “Centre for Humanitarian Demining and Expertise”.
The Italian Government is among the donors supporting the start of the pilot clearance project.
During the visit, Mr. Arkadi Tonoyan, the Head of the "CHDE" Project, presented to the Italian delegation the scale of the planned works, as well as the results of the operations conducted so far.
Since its start in December 2021, during the Explosive Ordnance Clearance Project the teams have so far cleared approximately 811,115sqm of agricultural land and found 291 units of explosive ordnance.
The ultimate goal of this project is to clear a total of 1 million square meters of agricultural land.
