New Zealand Defence Force
Te Ope Kaatua O Aotearoa

Media Release

3 July 2007

Defence Team Home from Lebanon

A New Zealand Defence Force battle area clearance team returns to New Zealand today after five months in Southern Lebanon.

The ten-strong team has been assisting the United Nations Mine Action Coordination Centre in Southern Lebanon to clear munitions from crop fields, orchards and grazing land. An area equaling the size of almost nineteen rugby fields has been cleared and 957 explosive remnants of war have been disarmed by the Kiwis.

Senior National Officer Lieutenant Commander Steve Lenik says that there is a real feeling of accomplishment after months of hard work.

“The team has done an amazing job – our training prepared us for the physical work we were doing, but nothing could prepare us for the satisfaction we felt watching the land we’d just cleared being reoccupied. We could see immediately what a difference our work was making to the lives of the Southern Lebanese people. It was an incredible experience.”

One soldier has already returned to New Zealand and a further two will remain in Southern Lebanon for a week to assist with the accreditation process of the new team who arrived last week.

The 2006 conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon has left substantial amounts of unexploded munitions scattered throughout urban areas and farmland. At the end of the conflict the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) estimated that more than one million unexploded cluster bomblets remained spread over 798 sites in southern Lebanon, mostly in urban or populated areas.

ENDS

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