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Following female deminers in Nagorno-Karabakh

Unexploded landmines are responsible for the deaths of 15-20,000 people every year, and currently contaminate 78 countries worldwide. Nagorno-Karabakh, a landlocked, mountainous region in South Caucasus, Eastern Europe, has one of the highest per capita incidences of landmine accidents in the world, and a third of the victims are children.

Eva Clifford, former online writer at BJP, spent a week with the world’s largest mine clearance organisation, The HALO Trust, and its first female demining team in Nagorno-Karabakh. Since deploying its first female demining team in 2015, HALO now employs 11 women, with more undergoing training this year.

“I wanted to show that women are also capable of doing this sort of work,” says Clifford, “which was especially interesting to see in such a patriarchal society.”

A female deminer at work on the Aghavnatun minefield in the Lachin region of Nagorno-Karabakh. When the residents of a nearby village noticed a landmine they alerted The HALO Trust, who dispatched a team to survey and clear the area. The village is just 1.2km away, which means children regularly come to play here. From the series The female de-miners of Nagorno Karabakh © Eva Clifford

After graduating with a degree in English Literature, Clifford began writing about photography then started her first project in Mexico in 2016. She went on to complete an MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at the London College of Communication, graduating in 2018. “I still consider myself more of a writer than a photographer though,” she says.

Clifford originally intended to go to Laos, where she first heard about The HALO Trust’s work in 2013, but after hearing of similar problems in Nagorno-Karabakh, and the women who were helping to solve it, she decided to focus her project there.

“It’s a place not many people have heard about, yet it has such a fascinating history,” says Clifford. The Nagorno-Karabakh War, from 1988-1994, was an ethnic and territorial conflict between the former Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan, she points out – a dispute that remains unresolved to this day.

Clad in the same protective gear, Clifford accompanied the deminers every day for a week, photographing them with a heavy medium format camera, through a visor that kept fogging up. “The minefields were on a steep hill so it was tricky to keep balance, and this was just to take the photos,” she says. “It’s hard to imagine what it must be like to do the actual work.”

www.evaclifford.com

Anti-aircraft cables in Nagorno-Karabakh. From the series The female de-miners of Nagorno-Karabakh © Eva Clifford
From the series The female de-miners of Nagorno-Karabakh © Eva Clifford
From the series The female de-miners of Nagorno-Karabakh © Eva Clifford
From the series The female de-miners of Nagorno-Karabakh © Eva Clifford
From the series The female de-miners of Nagorno-Karabakh © Eva Clifford
From the series The female de-miners of Nagorno-Karabakh © Eva Clifford
The demining team at Aghavnatun minefield in the Lachin region of Nagorno-Karabakh. During the Nagorno-Karabakh War, the Lachin Corridor was strategically important as it was the only passage between Armenia and NK. From the series The female de-miners of Nagorno-Karabakh © Eva Clifford
Marigold Warner

Deputy Editor

Marigold Warner worked as an editor at BJP between 2018 and 2023. She studied English Literature and History of Art at the University of Leeds, followed by an MA in Magazine Journalism from City, University of London. Her work has been published by titles including the Telegraph Magazine, Huck, Elephant, Gal-dem, The Face, Disegno, and the Architects Journal.