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The 34-year-old Lyubov keeps her colleagues 25 meters away from her work
- Should a mine explode, the others have a better chance of survival
Photo: Gaelle Girbes
The way to the minefield began for Svetlana with a newspaper advertisement.
The aid organization “Danish Demining Group” was looking for employees there last spring
for an apparent suicide mission: searching for mines.
Svetlana, 47, mother of two sons, a teacher before the war, answered anyway.
Today it seems to her that she could continue her work until she retires: only four countries in the world are more mined than Ukraine.
Seven years after the start of the conflict in Donbass, it is impossible to predict when all the explosives will be cleared.
Going to the fields, playing football in the meadows, collecting wood in the forest - all of this can be fatal at any time in eastern Ukraine.
Since 2014, 700 deaths from mines have been counted, and more than twice as many people are said to have been injured.
The conflict has been forgotten by many in the West.
He is not resolved.
Ukrainian soldiers are still being killed in battle with the pro-Russian separatists, and children are repeatedly dying from land mines.
In many conflict areas, clearing the explosives, just like laying them, is often a matter for men. In Ukraine, 22 of the 89 minesweepers were women. Almost all of them, like Swetlana, are mothers, not infrequently single parents. Their number is increasing, and next year there will be a separate women's group for the first time.
The French photographer Gaelle Girbes has been documenting the Ukraine conflict on location since 2017.
At the beginning, says Girbes, she could not understand why women risked their lives almost every day.
"I couldn't imagine how you can say goodbye to your child every morning if you don't know whether you are still alive in the evening," she says.
“It was only over time that I understood that these women see it very differently.
They chose this job because they are mothers.
They want to clear the mines in order to protect the lives of their children. "
Quite a few pay a high price for this: Grandparents and relatives often turn away; from the point of view of many older people, working in the minefield is not for mothers, reports Girbes.
The photographer was previously in trenches with Ukrainian soldiers, and her long-term observation of the conflict is being funded by CNAP, the Center national des arts plastiques in Paris.
She says she had to get used to working with the mine sweepers.
“In war you can see and hear the danger that surrounds you.
Even the sniper's bullets make noise.
On the other hand, it is very quiet in the minefields.
Nobody knows how close death really is. "
The work in the minefields is physically demanding, the women try to keep the sweat running off their faces with towels.
They cannot do without their heavy, light blue protective vests even at 35 degrees in midsummer.
During this time the women sneak through a landscape that is dangerously idyllic at times.
Wherever the mines hold back people in Donbass, wild flowers grow, tall grass sways in the wind.
But any additional restlessness or distraction would be dangerous, singing or even talking at work is unthinkable.
Every hour the mine sweepers interrupt their work for a ten-minute break.
This is the only way, says Gaelle Girbes, of maintaining attention for many hours.
Not all women who work for the Danish aid organization are on the front line.
Some are out and about as "mine hunters".
Together with civilians, mostly farmers, they locate the mined area and thus prepare the evacuation.
Others support prevention in schools and villages to avoid further deaths.
"Anyone who lives in Donbass today will have to do with the mines for years to come," says photographer Gaelle Girbes.
"Even if there is peace at some point."
See in the photo story how the mine sweepers from Donbass work - and what their life looks like apart from the war:
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