Geoff Hazel - Mines in the buffer zone

Running time
1 min 22 sec
Date made
Copyright
Department of Veterans' Affairs

Transcript

There was one Australian, a farmer, who went in and drove his tractor, and he hit a mine in his farming field in the buffer zone. Because we were always trying to get farming back into the buffer zones, so we could try and normalise that whole stretch. And it was definitely the patrol track was the dividing line. South of patrol track, the Greeks could farm.

North of the patrol track, the Turks could farm. Turks, first tour, no way. They just did not allow it. The Greeks allowed some, but yeah, this had been all a few years before. And an Australian went in, got him out and brought him back out. There was one UN Land Rover; it was one of our Land Rovers from the earlier times, drove over a mine. Because in fact, when I went there, nobody really knew where they all were.

By the time we got there, everybody knew where they were, they were well marked. And so you didn't worry too much about the mines. You had barbecues sort of 10 metres from the mine field, but they were so well marked, and yeah, everybody knew where they were. But there had been troubles in the past.

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