ウクライナの農家、命懸けの作付け　畑に不発弾や地雷

【フリホリウカＡＦＰ＝時事】ウクライナで作付けの季節を迎えた。農家は今年、燃料と肥料以外のものを切望している。地雷や爆弾処理の専門家と防弾チョッキだ。（写真はウクライナ南部ザポリージャ州フリホリウカで、トラクターで不発弾の残骸を運ぶ農家）
　南西部フリホリウカのイーホル・チアパさんのトウモロコシ畑には耕されてない一角がある。不発弾が横たわるその一角以外はすでに耕作が終わり、作付けを待つばかりになっている。
　５０代後半のチアパさんは５日、ＡＦＰに対し、「１週間半前にロケットを見つけたが、その辺りを避けて作付けの準備を進めた」と話した。数メートル先では、救急当局の爆発物処理班が不発弾の爆破準備を進めていた。
　「多少なりともまともな作物を収穫したければ、すべてを予定通りにやらなければならない。中断はできない」
　ロシアの攻撃の影響で、ウクライナ各地に多数の地雷や不発弾が残っている。
　警察によると、４日にはキーウ州のホホリウで農民がトラクターで地雷に乗ってしまい、負傷した。
　農業関連のマーケティング会社「プロアグロ・グループ」のアナリスト、マリヤ・コレスニク氏は、ウクライナ侵攻関連の爆発事故は約２０件報告されているが、死者数は分からないと指摘する。
　「農業関係者は今、地雷除去の専門家を最も必要としている」「ウクライナの専門家は休みなく働いており、私たちは国際的支援を切実に求めている」と訴えた。
　チアパさんの畑では、青いヘルメットをかぶった処理班が、握り拳ほどの大きさの爆薬をロケットの横に置き、その上に土を掛けた。
　処理班の一人、ディミトロ・ポリシュチュクさんは、多い日で３個の爆発物を処理すると話した。
　ポリシュチュクさんによると、忙しくて処理班を待てず、棒の先にプラスチックボトルや袋を付けた警告旗を爆発物の近くに立て、作業を続ける農家もいる。しかし、放置しておけば爆発しないという保証はないと指摘。自爆するよう設定されているものもあり、いつ爆発するか分からないと警告した。
　チアパさんは、ロシア軍の攻撃の影響がない地域の農家は、作付けができなくなった地域の分を補う必要があると考えている。危険は承知だ。
　「この地域にいる私たちは、収穫量を増やすという責任もプレッシャーも２倍になっている。ここでは戦闘は起きていないので、作業ができる」
　ウクライナはヒマワリ油の世界最大の産地で、小麦の主要輸出国だった。侵攻以前は、トウモロコシの輸出量は世界４位、小麦の輸出量はロシア、米国に次ぎ世界３位になるとみられていた。ロシアとウクライナの小麦の輸出量は、世界全体の約３割を占めている。
　チアパさんの畑に黒煙が上り、爆発音が響いた。
　爆破処理が終わるとすぐに赤いバンに乗り込み、走り去った。作付けを続けなければならない。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2022/05/11-13:49）

It's spring planting season in Ukraine, but this year farmers require more than fuel and fertiliser ?- they also need flak jackets and deminers to destroy the bombs that have already killed or maimed others in their fields.
One of the unexploded rockets lay on an island of undisturbed black soil in Igor Tsiapa's field in the nation's southwest and posed a deadly threat to getting his corn crop planted on land that was otherwise ploughed and waiting.
We first spotted the projectile a week and a half ago but just didn't touch this part of the field and continued on getting ready for planting, he told AFP on Thursday, a few metres from the deminers prepping the device for destruction.
Everything has to be done on schedule if you want to have a more or less proper harvest... We had to keep working, the nearly 60-year-old added in the area of the village of Grygorivka.
Farmers in Ukraine have found themselves on the front line of a Russian invasion that has tainted swathes of the country with undetonated mines, shells and rockets.
That's because they face a unique risk of setting off one of the devices while working the soil, one more piece of worrying news for next year's harvest in Europe's breadbasket.
Police said the latest injury was in the Kyiv area where a farmer in the village of Gogoliv hit a mine on his tractor while in the fields on Wednesday.
Maria Kolesnyk, with analytics firm ProAgro Group, told AFP that about 20 incidents had been recorded of farmers being struck by accidental explosions of war ordnance, but it wasn't clear how many instances were fatal.
In the agro community today the most sought-after profession is the sappers, she said. We desperately need the help of the international community because Ukrainian professionals are working 24/7.
- Improvised bomb markers -
In Tsiapa's field the rocket was left where it landed, and the blue-helmeted sappers placed orange fist-sized blocks of explosives along its explosive payload before shovelling a mound of dirt over it.
Every day since the start of the war we have been finding and destroying unexploded ammunition, Dmytro Polishchuk, one of the deminers, told AFP before heading into the field.
After farmers began working in the fields, we started getting regular calls from people alerting us to new devices, he said, noting the team destroyed up to three per day.
He added people have not always waited for overstretched demining crews to arrive, noting some farmers have marked the explosives with sticks bearing plastic bottles or bags as warning and went on ploughing.
Leaving the unexploded missiles untouched is not a guarantee that they won't explode, Polishchuk said, noting some have a self-destruct setting where they can go off at any time.
For Tsiapa, farmers in areas that haven't been occupied have to pick up some of the slack, despite the risks, for places where planting could be disrupted by Russia's invasion.
So we here have double responsibility and double pressure to grow a good harvest. Things are that way because we don't have active combat here, so we can work, he added.
Ukraine is the world's top producer of sunflower oil and a major exporter of wheat, yet the war's disruption of labour and displacement of farmers from their land as well as fuel shortages have all raised worries.
Before the war, Ukraine was the world's fourth largest exporter of corn and was set to become the third biggest exporter of wheat after Russia and the United States.
Russia and Ukraine alone account for 30 percent of global wheat exports.
In Tsiapa's field, the deminers' work came to an abrupt end with a controlled blast that sent up a puff of black smoke and thudded through the valley, where spring weather has begun to turn trees and grass back to green.
When the blast was over with, Tsiapa hopped into his red van and drove off. He had to get back to work.