ASIEH NAMDAR, CNN ANCHOR: For the past several years, the government of Moldova has been working hard to destroy landmines, but the process has been far from easy. Mines were laid all over the country during a separtist conflict in the early 1990s. Now the government is using local workers to demine the area. TV Company MIR Moldova tells us about some of the obstacles in their way.</s>SNEJANA DIMITROVA, MIR CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Eight years has passed from the end of military conflict on the East (ph) River, but the peaceful time is coming just now for citizens of Bahari (ph) village. All the time after conflict, 85 hectares of mined territory surrounded it. Nobody guarded the mined territory. And in peaceful time, one city man perished and 10 became crippled because of anti- personal mines. Yelsi Ivanovic (ph), on one of his walks to the cherry garden can become fatal, too, he lost one leg.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We wanted some farm mineland because everyone was sick of mine. How long have we to pass here and be afraid of coming across mines? Our cows graze there, and when one has to take them home, one can fall victim to a mine.</s>DIMITROVA: One of the civilians' hopes about mine clearing, we are running out.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): The territory was mined in 1991, 1992. The difficulty of mine clearing was that there were no anti-mining map, non-professionals mined this field. They did this for their own security, but not for the purpose of just necessity. Besides there is one more difficulty, that this land consists of about 200</s>DIMITROVA: Inch by inch, they cross the mine fields during three months in the rain and in the intense heat. The works were complicated because the manual mode was only possible. Engineers have to dig mine up, risking every minute of their lives.
Moldovan Government Looks to Clear Mines