A HALO demining worker carefully probes for mines in Ukraine. Credit: Tom Pilston/HALO

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, May 5 2025 (IPS)

As a string of European states announce withdrawals from a global treaty banning antipersonnel landmines, campaigners are warning countless lives could be put at risk as decades of progress fighting the weapons come under threat.

On April 16, Latvia’s parliament approved the country’s withdrawal from the Ottawa Convention. This came just weeks after Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, and Finland all announced their intention to pull out of the treaty.

The countries have argued the move is a necessary security measure in light of growing Russian aggression.

But campaign groups have said that pulling out of the treaty is undermining the agreement itself with serious humanitarian implications.

“While far from the end of the treaty, this is a very big setback for the treaty and a very depressing development. Antipersonnel landmines are objectionable because they are inherently indiscriminate weapons and because of their long-lasting humanitarian impact,” Mary Wareham, deputy director of the Crisis, Conflict and Arms Division at Human Rights Watch, which is a co-founder of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), told IPS.

“The supposed military benefits of landmines are far outweighed by the devastating humanitarian implications of them,” she added.

The 1997 Ottawa Treaty bans the use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of antipersonnel landmines. It has been ratified or accepted by 165 countries—Russia, the United States, China, North Korea, Iran, and Israel are among those that are not signatories.

HALO demining in action. Credit: Tom Pilston/HALO

Campaign groups supporting the ban highlight the devastation landmines cause not just from direct casualties but also from driving massive displacement, hindering the delivery of humanitarian aid and impeding socio-economic recovery from conflict.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of those killed by landmines—80%—are civilians, with children particularly vulnerable.

“The presence of mines and other explosive ordnance continues to cause high levels of fatalities and serious injury, often resulting in life-long disabilities, with disproportionate impacts on children, persons with disabilities, and those forced to return under desperate conditions,” Shabia Mantoo, UNHCR spokesperson, told IPS.

“In addition to the high death toll, injuries and their aftereffects, including psychological damage, the presence of explosive devices hinders access to local livelihoods such as pastures, fields, farms, and firewood, as well as community infrastructure. They also affect the delivery of humanitarian aid and development activities. For humanitarian actors, their ability to safely reach communities with high levels of humanitarian needs and vulnerabilities and deliver life-saving assistance and protection  are often seriously constrained due to risks posed by explosive devices,” Mantoo added.

Humanitarian groups say the treaty has been instrumental in reducing landmine casualties from approximately 25,000 per year in 1999 to fewer than 5,000 in 2023. The number of contaminated states and regions has also declined significantly, from 99 in 1999 to 58 in 2024.

The treaty also includes measures requiring member countries to clear and destroy them as well as to provide assistance to victims, and as of the end of last year, 33 states had completed clearing all antipersonnel mines from their territory since 1999.

But in recent years, landmine casualties have grown amid new and worsening conflicts.

Data from the ICBL’s Landmine Monitor (2024) showed that in 2023, at least 5,757 people were killed or injured by landmines in 2023—a rise of 22 percent compared with 2022—in 53 countries.

The highest number of casualties—1,003—was recorded in Myanmar. This was three times the number in 2022. This was followed by Syria (933), Afghanistan (651), Ukraine (580), and Yemen (499).

In a special report on the continuing risks posed by mines and explosive remnants of war (ERW), the presence of which is known as ‘weapon contamination,’ released earlier in April, the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC)  warned that in 2025, the humanitarian impact of weapon contamination would likely continue to rise.

“The increased use of improvised explosive devices, shifting frontlines, and worsening security conditions will make survey and clearance efforts even more complex and therefore leave communities exposed to greater danger,” the report stated.

In two of the world’s most landmine-contaminated countries, Myanmar and Ukraine, the severe humanitarian impact of massive landmine use is being made horrifyingly clear.

In Myanmar, local aid groups say the ruling military junta’s use of landmines has escalated to unprecedented levels, while rebel groups are also deploying them. Roads and villages have been mined—ostensibly for military purposes, although many observers say they are just as often used to terrorize local populations—leading to not just civilian deaths and horrific injuries but also hindering vital medical care and aid efforts. Mines have been used in all 14 Myanmar states and regions, affecting about 60 percent of the country’s townships.

The mines have been an extra problem in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake at the end of March. The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) said just days after the disaster, which killed more than 3,000 people, that as people relocated to areas less impacted by the earthquake and local and international organizations planned their response, ERWs were threatening not just the lives of those moving but also the safe delivery of humanitarian relief.

A group of HALO deminers with their equipment prepare for work. Credit: Tom Pilston/HALO

In Ukraine there has been extensive landmine use since Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022. Russian forces have mined vast swathes of land, while there have been reports that Ukrainian forces have also used anti-personnel mines. It is estimated approximately 174,000 square kilometers, almost 30 percent of Ukraine’s territory, are affected by landmines and ERWs.

“According to NATO, Ukraine is now the world’s most mine-affected country and has seen the most mine laying since World War II.  The humanitarian impact of this contamination has been multifaceted—as well as vast swathes of prime farming land being contaminated, adversely affecting food security, civilian areas are also badly affected, including schools, residential zones, roads, and key infrastructure, leading to widespread displacement,” a spokesperson for the HALO Trust, a major humanitarian NGO carrying out demining operations around the world, including Ukraine, told IPS.

The spokesperson added that the effects of extensive landmine laying in the country may be felt for decades to come.

“HALO deminers are working in liberated areas, but it will take many years—if not decades— to clear Ukraine of landmines. Areas closest to the frontlines, such as Kharkiv and Sumy, are the areas where most people have been displaced, and some parts of these regions may remain uninhabitable until made completely safe. Any additional minelaying will extend the risk to civilian populations, agricultural production, and global trade for decades to come,” they said.

Anti-landmine campaigners also warn that if countries pull out of the Ottawa Convention, there is a risk that the use of landmines will become normalized.

“Increased acceptance [of landmines] could lead to wider proliferation and use, recreating the extensive contamination seen in Ukraine, Myanmar, and other conflict zones. In addition, withdrawal risks normalizing the rejection of humanitarian standards during times of insecurity, potentially undermining other crucial international norms. The ICBL has warned of a dangerous slippery slope where rejecting established norms during tense periods could lead to reconsideration of other banned weapons (e.g., chemical and biological weapons),” Charles Bechara, Communications Manager at ICBL, told IPS.

“Landmine survivors worldwide are shocked and horrified that European countries are about to undermine such progress and make the same mistake that dozens of other countries now regret. When European nations withdraw [from the Ottawa Convention], this sends a problematic message to countries facing internal or external security threats that such weapons are now acceptable,” he added.

However, it is not just withdrawals from the Ottawa Convention that are worrying anti-landmine groups.

Funding for demining efforts as well as services to help victims are under threat.

While the United States is not a signatory to the Ottawa Convention, it has been the largest contributor to humanitarian demining and rehabilitation programs for landmine survivors over the past 30 years. In 2023, it provided 39 percent of total international support to the tune of USD 310 million.

But the current halt to US foreign aid funding means that critical programs are now at risk, according to the ICBL.

“The US funding suspension threatens progress in heavily contaminated countries where casualty rates had been significantly reduced through consistent mine action work,” said Bechara.

He added the stop on funding would have “severe consequences for treaty implementation goals,” including the disruption or cessation of mine clearance operations in over 30 countries, a pause on victim assistance programs providing prosthetics and rehabilitation services, curtailment of risk education initiatives that help communities avoid mines, job losses at demining organizations, and problems implementing other humanitarian and development work because agencies depend on mine clearance to safely access areas.

Meanwhile, supporters of the Ottawa Convention are urging the countries currently intending to leave the landmine treaty to rethink their decisions.

“For Latvia and other countries considering withdrawal from the Mine Ban Convention, the ICBL is clear that weapons that predominantly kill and injure civilians cannot safeguard any nation’s security. Military experts, including Latvia’s own National Armed Forces commander, have concluded that modern weapon systems offer more effective defensive capabilities without the indiscriminate harm to civilians,” said Bechara.

“Despite the threats against the Mine Ban Treaty, the ICBL’s message is for countries to immediately cease their withdrawals and stand behind the treaty. Long-term security and safety cannot be ensured by a weakened international humanitarian law, which was conceived specifically to protect civilians in dire security situations,” he added.

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Manzoor Pashteen, a leader of the the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement, addresses a rally in Lahore on April 22, 2018. Credit: Khalid Mahmood/IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Apr 26 2018 (IPS)

“If I’m assured that my home and my village has been de-mined, I’d be the first to return with my family,” says 54-year old Mohammad Mumtaz Khan.

Khan lived in the mountainous village of Patwelai in South Waziristan, a rugged territory in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) near the Afghan border, one of the world’s most important geopolitical regions. In 2008, he shifted to Dera Ismail Khan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province with his wife and six children.

They had to leave Patwelai hurriedly, “with just the clothes on our backs”, after the Pakistan army decided to launch a major ground-air offensive to cleanse the entire area of the Taliban.

Mumtaz Khan lost his foot to a landmine in his home. Credit: Khan family

Since then, the military carried out a series of intermittent operations across FATA till 2016, when they claimed they had destroyed the Pakistani Taliban’s infrastructure in the country.

That same year, in 2016, the army gave the internally displaced persons (IDPs) — over half a million — a clean chit to return to their homes. Feeling lucky, Khan and a few dozen men decided to visit their village and assess the situation before returning with their families.

It was while he was entering his home through a window that he accidentally stepped on a landmine. “There was a boom and before I could fathom what had happened, I saw my bloodied left foot,” Khan said.

“I am lucky that I got away with a small injury. It may not be so the next time around,” he said, adding that the mountains and valleys are “teeming” with improvised explosive devices (IED) and explosive remnants of war (ERW).

“Despite having cleared the area of militants, it is not possible for many to move about freely as the place remains infested with landmines,” agreed Raza Shah, who heads the Sustainable Peace and Development Organization (SPADO), an active member of the global Control Arms Coalition and International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA). Since 2010, SPADO has been blocked from working in FATA.

After the demand by the Pashtuns earlier this year during their long march to Islamabad, the authorities promised they would start de-mining the area.

Not everyone is convinced, especially since the accidents continue. “It is not just a daunting task, but a painstaking, expensive, and risky one and the government is neither equipped with the technology nor does it have the huge human resources needed to comb the vast area,” said Gohar Mehsud, a journalist from the area who has covered the issues of the FATA extensively.

“The military should have cleared the area of mines before letting the tribes return,” said Mohsin Dawar, one of the people behind the newly formed Pashtun Tahafuz Movement which is day by day gaining strength. He pointed out that among their demands was to ask the military to send more teams of bomb disposal units to comb the area and clear the place.

Recalling his tragedy, Khan narrated that he was carried down the mountain to the main road on his nephew’s back for a good two hours, all while bleeding profusely. Once they reached the road, he was tied onto a motorbike and taken to the nearest health centre where he was administered basic first aid. “All I remember was the excruciating pain I felt throughout the journey that seemed never-ending,” he said.

Meanwhile, another cousin had arranged a car to take him to the nearest hospital in D.I. Khan. All in all, the journey took a good nine hours before he reached the hospital.

His injury, like those faced every day by countless others residing in the area, highlights a problem that this conflict has left behind. It also shows an utter disregard for civilian life. Dawar calls it nothing but “criminal negligence” on the part of the Pakistani army.

According to Mehsud, the bombs may have been laid during the conflict by both the army and the terrorists. He discovered a landmine in his house a couple of years back after his family returned to their village in South Waziristan.

“We have been after the army personnel to send someone to defuse the bomb but so far nothing has been done,” he said. For now they have placed stones around it and continually remind their family members not to step anywhere near it.

According to a SPADO spokesperson, the area along the Line of Control between India and Pakistan is heavily mined. “But that area is also heavily fenced with no civilian access; it is marked too.”

The scattered cases of injuries and casualties have occurred only because the mines may have slipped from their position due to rain. On the other hand, in FATA, the landmines are used as an offensive not a defensive weapon by both the military and the militants and are therefore unmarked. “They are even found inside school compounds, homes, and agriculture fields,” said Shah of SPADO.

“I don’t care who planted these bombs; the military carried out the operation in our territory and I hold them responsible for clearing it,” said Dawar.

Shah agreed that mine clearance was the responsibility of the military corps of engineers. He fails to understand why, if the bomb disposal units were so good and sent on missions abroad to clear mines, why not make their own country safe first.

He added that if the military initiated a full-throttle de-mining, it would be the easiest way to win the hearts and mind of the tribal people. “They will gain confidence that the army is there to protect their children,” he said.

“The army has started to cover some ground in South Waziristan, but it needs to be more proactive and engaged and begin this in earnest in the rest of the agencies,” said Mona Naseer, co-founder of Khor Network of tribal women, who belongs to Orakzai agency where a kid was recently injured by stepping on a mine and fatally injured.

These injuries come with a life-long economic cost. For the last two years, Khan has undertaken cumbersome travel  from D.I. Khan to bigger cities like Peshawar and even down to Rawalpindi, in the Punjab province, from one doctor to another, each giving their own opinions. “I have spent over one million rupees on my leg, but still walk with the help of crutches,” he points out helplessly.

Along with losing his limb, his job, and his home, Khan has lost the purpose of his existence. His life, he said, has changed completely. “I’m now a  cripple, imprisoned at home and dependent on others for help. I cannot ride a motorbike, cannot go to the market, have to ask others to help me in the bathroom…everything that I should be doing myself.” Khan doubted he would ever manage to go back to his village given the rugged mountainous terrain that it is located in. The former school teacher is now limited to tutoring students at home.

Pakistan is not the only country facing a landmine problem. While it is impossible to get an accurate number of the total global area contaminated by landmines due to lack of data, landmine watch groups estimate that there could be 110 million landmines in the ground and an equal number in stockpiles waiting to be planted or destroyed. The cost to remove them all is 50 to 100 billion dollars.

According to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines network, more than 4,200 people, of whom 42 per cent are children, fall victim to landmines and ERWs annually in many of the countries affected by war or in post-conflict situations around the world.

A global Mine Ban Treaty known as the Ottawa Convention (which became international law in 1999) has been signed and ratified by 162 countries. It prohibits the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel landmines (APLs). Sadly, Pakistan is among the countries (United States, China, India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Russia) that have have not signed the treaty and is among both the producers and users of landmines.

In  2016, the Landmine Monitor report placed India as the third biggest stockpiler of APLs in 2015 after Russia and Pakistan.

Last year, Sri Lanka acceded to the Antipersonnel Mine Ban Convention and set a deadline to be free of landmines by 2020. “Sri Lanka’s accession should spur other nations that haven’t joined the landmine treaty to take another look at why they want to be associated with such an obsolete, abhorrent weapon,” said Steve Goose, arms director at Human Rights Watch and chair of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines – the group effort behind the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty.

But Shah said that unless India agreed to accede, Pakistan will not take the first step. “Perhaps the way to go about it is to bring the issue on the agenda during peace negotiations and when talks around confidence building measures take place between the two countries,” he said.

SPADO is also the official contact point of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and Cluster Munitions Coalition (CMC). It openly advocates for the universalization of the Mine Ban Treaty and the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Along with FATA, accidents due to landmines are happening in other places in Pakistan. In 2017, according to SPADO, among the 316 injuries and 153 deaths in total, Pakistan-administered Kashmir recorded seven; Balochistan province 171; FATA 230; and KPK 61.

A majority of the injured and dead were men who were found either driving, fetching water, taking livestock for grazing, rescuing others who had stepped on a bomb, passing by etc. Children were usually playing outside when they chanced upon a shiny object, like a “disc-shaped shoe polish box” hidden in the grass which they attempted to pick  up.

“The figures that SPADO has collected  includes only those that were reported in the media and are just the tip of the iceberg,” Shah emphasized.

He said there was an urgent need for a national registry where such a record is kept and a more comprehensive rehabilitation programme is instituted.

“Taking care of the injured and maimed is expensive and long term,” he said, noting that when the victim is a child, for example, he or she will grow and require new prosthetic limbs. “While the army takes care of its own, unfortunately, there are very few institutes where civilians can go and seek help,” he said.

Almost 90 percent of recent deaths or serious injuries to United Nations peacekeepers in Mali have been attributed to improvised explosive devices (IEDs), a U.N. panel has heard.

Ahead of International Day of Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action on April 4, the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) is this week hosting a series of events and discussions in New York.

The theme of the 2015 awareness campaign is ‘More Than Mines,’ encompassing a range of other explosive hazards besides traditional landmines, according to UNMAS Director Agnès Marcaillou.

“This issue, thought to be an issue of the past, has come back in full force. ‘More Than Mines’ includes IEDs, cluster bombs, unexploded ordnance,” Marcaillou told a panel on IEDs on Monday.

Representatives from Afghanistan, Chad, Japan, Colombia, France and the Netherlands told how the dangers of explosive ordnance are shifting; mine threats becoming more manageable, with enforcement of international agreements and reduction of stockpiles, while the occurrence of IEDs is on the rise.

“In Afghanistan, victims of landmines are declining, but they are being replaced with victims of IEDs,” Marcaillou said.

Gombo Tchouli, Political Coordinator of the Permanent Mission of Chad to the United Nations, said UNMAS had recorded 409 casualties from IEDs in Mali since January 2013, with 135 deaths and 274 injuries. Of those 409 casualties, 142 were peacekeepers deployed to the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), 89 percent of the mission’s 158 total peacekeeper casualties.

“IEDs undermine operational effectiveness and freedom of movement, stop peacekeepers moving outward from camp, and prevent implementation of critical mission mandated tasks,” he said.

Eric Schilling, a counter-IED advisor with UNMAS, said U.N. peacekeepers were now more frequently targeted by IEDs and other explosives than in the past.

“The devices can be relatively low-cost, victim-operated pressure plates, up to more sophisticated technology using cell phones. They are limited only by the imagination of the bomb-maker and their ability to gather the materials needed,” he said.

In a session earlier in the day, titled ‘Visions From The Field,’ UNMAS explored how mine-clearing action was being taken in Colombia. Marcaillou called Colombia “one of the most mine-affected countries in the world,” second in impacts only to Afghanistan. Mines are said to have killed 11,000 Colombians since 1990.

Initiatives to engage locals, especially women, in helping to clear mines were hailed as a “best practice” example. Bringing locals in to work, and by extension, assuring them that areas are safe and that they can return to work and school, is seen as the most effective way to restore communities.

“De-mining can’t be imposed from the outside. It is important to connect with people locally, to be working with local communities, and generating benefits for the local population,” said Ambassador Karel van Oosterom, Permanent Representative of the Netherlands.

Activities for International Day of Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action continue all week.

Follow Josh Butler on Twitter at @JoshButler

Edited by Roger Hamilton-Martin

At an artificial limbs centre in Kabul. Credit: Najibullah Musafer/Killid/IPS

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Feb 3 2014 (IPS)

The U.S. government is being urged to conclude a review of national policy on landmines that has dragged on for more than four years, a lag that some say has indirectly led to the injury or death of more than 16,000 people.

Rights and advocacy groups are now mounting a new campaign to urge President Barack Obama to finish the review, hold true to pledges that have been lingering for years, and formally join an international treaty to ban antipersonnel mines. In a letter sent to the president on Friday and publicly circulated on Monday, critics of U.S. policy on the issue urged the administration to sign on to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty and to move to begin to destroy the millions of landmines that remain in the country’s stockpiles.“It’s a real paradox. The United States has shown extremely good behaviour on this issue in recent years, yet it still reserves the right to use these weapons." -- Mica Bevington

“Your administration’s review is now into its fifth year, and it is hard to understand why the process should be delayed any further, particularly after the administration said more than one year ago that the review would conclude ‘soon’,” the letter, signed by 17 rights, watchdog and advocacy groups on behalf of several hundred civil society organisations, states.

“We have repeatedly urged the US to fulfill its long-held intention to join the Mine Ban Treaty. U.S. accession would help to convince the other countries not yet party to join, strengthening the norm against the weapon, thereby ensuring it is not used in the future and creates no additional humanitarian and socio-economic harm.”

Some 161 countries are currently party to the Mine Ban Treaty, which came into effect in 1999. Last year just a few countries are known to have used antipersonnel mines, including Syria and Myanmar, but nearly three dozen remain outside of the treaty, including China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, South Korea, Sri Lanka and others.

The United States, meanwhile, is the only member of NATO not to have signed onto the treaty, as well as the only country in the Western Hemisphere other than Cuba.

“We believe that U.S. involvement in this treaty would deter others,” Steve Goose, the executive director for Human Rights Watch (HRW)’s Arms Division and a lead signatory of the new letter to President Obama, told IPS.

“These countries wouldn’t come onboard the day after the U.S. signs, but they would be affected by the fact that the United States has aligned itself fully with this new international standard.”

4,000 per year

The treaty, also known as the Ottawa Convention, bans the use, sale or stockpiling of landmines, while also mandating that members destroy all mines within their territories. The treaty is widely seen as having been successful in significantly bringing down the number of landmine-caused injuries and deaths, from about 25,000 per year to current levels of around 4,000 per year.

Needless to say, that number is still very high. Advocacy groups suggest that millions of landmines remain in upwards of 60 countries, some left over from as long ago as World War II, highlighting the uniquely dangerous nature of these weapons.

Broad recognition of the unacceptably long-lasting nature of anti-personnel mines led then-president Bill Clinton to decide, in 1997, that the United States would join the Mine Ban Treaty in 2006. While his successor, George W. Bush, reversed this decision, stating that the United States would never join the treaty, many had expected President Barack Obama to change course yet again when he took office in 2009.

Instead, in December 2009 the president announced that his administration would undertake a policy review. And while that review seems to have gotten off to a strong start, with administration officials reportedly talking to a broad group of stakeholders in 2010, its finalisation has since been held up repeatedly.

It is unclear what has slowed down the U.S. policy review. Some have pointed to a 2009 Pentagon statement suggesting it wanted to maintain the option of using certain mines in Afghanistan, while others say concerns over the possibility of war on the Korean peninsula could play a part.

The U.S. State Department was unable to comment for this story, though an agency official in December noted that the review was “pressing forward to conclusion”. Yet HRW’s Goose says recent weeks have seen a new flurry of action.

“This review has limped on now for almost five years, though we’ve been hearing that an announcement could now happen in coming days or weeks,” he says.

“That’s why we feel now is the time to try to push them over the hump, get the right decision made and have it announced publicly. We’ve gotten mixed signals about what the review will contain, but we’re optimistic that we’ll have a positive outcome.”

U.S. paradox

Particularly confusing for advocates is that fact that the United States has largely conformed to the Mine Ban Treaty’s mandates for decades. Indeed, since the early 1990s it has been the world’s most generous anti-mine donor.

Further, the U.S. military has reportedly not used antipersonnel mines since the Gulf War, in 1991, and has not exported any of the weapons since 1992. The country even halted all landmine manufacturing in 1997.

Nonetheless, the U.S. military continues to stockpile as many as 10 million landmines. And these, of course, remain available for future use unless new policy specifically bars doing so – or unless the government moves to destroy these caches.

“It’s a real paradox. The United States has shown extremely good behaviour on this issue in recent years, yet it still reserves the right to use these weapons,” Mica Bevington, communications director for Handicap International U.S., a charity that won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for its anti-mine work, told IPS.

“We feel that now is the time for the U.S. to put the other foot down and join the treaty. Doing so might encourage other countries – such as China and Russia – to join the treaty, and it would also ensure that these millions of deadly weapons are destroyed once and for all.”

Handicap International, which runs the world’s largest anti-mine operation, currently has de-mining and rehabilitation operations in 37 countries. The group says that 70 percent of the victims of landmines or unexploded ordnance are civilians, with nearly a third being children.

“With these injuries comes a community-wide sense of fear, and they require long-term support rehabilitation and attention,” Bevington says. “We need to put politics aside and remember that the victims here are people.”

Qadir Sheikh, a landmine victim from Warsun, laments that his handicap will mean no education for his two daughters. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS

By Athar Parvaiz
SRINAGAR, May 18 2013 (IPS)

Aadil Khan and his two siblings had been playing as usual behind their house in the village of Diver, 110 kilometres north of Kashmir’s capital, Srinagar, when they came across what they thought was a “plaything” laying on the ground. But no sooner had they picked the object up than it literally shattered their innocent lives into pieces.

Stunned by the explosion from the shell, which the children had mistaken for a toy, they cannot remember much about the aftermath of that incident on Dec. 17. But the medics who treated them said they were “lucky” to have escaped with their lives.

“Aadil and Mashoq received severe injuries while their sister Naza escaped any major damage,” Sharief Khan, the children’s father, told IPS.

Khan, who supports a family of seven and earns his livelihood through manual labour, had to make a “tough decision” to ensure his children received proper medical treatment: he had to sell off a portion of his land.

The value of land in his village is so low that he only received 800 dollars for the entire plot, which is less than two-eighths of an acre, but Khan had few options. “Who could have lent such a huge amount to a poor man like me?” he asked.

Nearly six months later, Khan is still feeling the crunch of that sacrifice, forced to buy extra rice in the market because his remaining land does not yield enough grain to feed his large family. Already accustomed to the pangs of hunger, the Khan family now almost never has enough to eat.

Such are the stories of the nearly 700 victims of shells and mines here in Kashmir, a valley tucked between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range, whose scenic beauty conceals a bloody history that has its roots in the 1947 partition of India.

As the latter celebrated its independence from British colonial rule, and the newly created state of Pakistan struggled to find its feet, Kashmir found itself claimed by both sides.

While the two countries jostled for power over the resource-rich region, a United Nations resolution offered the valley’s residents three possibilities: either join Hindu-dominated India, Muslim-majority Pakistan, or vote for independence. But this last option was never made a reality, leaving Pakistan to seize a third of the territory and India to administer what was left.

For decades Kashmiris have resisted this arrangement, enforced by India and Pakistan. The “pro-freedom” uprising of 1989 morphed into a resistance movement that continues to simmer today and has resulted in at least 60,000 deaths to date.

Those whose lives have been spared have not been left untouched by the conflict, with hundreds maimed by landmines and unexploded shells months, even years, after they were planted. Most of the victims are children or farmers, who stumble across unexploded shells in fields where encounters between insurgents and the Indian army once took place.

Though no exact figures are available, experts believe thousands of unexploded shells and mines are scattered around frontier areas like the northeastern administrative unit of Karnah; the western town of Poonch; the Rajouri district, also known as the Vale of Lakes; Uri, a town located on the banks of the river Jhelum; and in various remote villages.

Earlier this year, four children were injured when a shell exploded in Chattabandy, a village in Kashmir’s Bandipora district.

“The children were playing in an open paddy field when they found an unexploded shell and started fiddling with it,” a villager named Mohammad Ramzan, who witnessed the scene on Feb. 3, told IPS, adding that such incidents have become a matter of “routine.”

“A number of people, mostly kids, have either been killed or sustained injuries in such explosions in and around our village alone,” he said.

For nine-year-old Aadil Khan, memories of the blast are too painful to recall. Though he is now recovering, he is plagued by the hardships his family has endured as a result of his injury.

But activists lament that the Khan family’s situation is not unique. Those maimed by stray explosives receive standard government compensation of about 1,500 dollars, a sum that does not even cover the most basic treatment and fails to take into account the fact that most victims end up disabled for life, according to Dr. Hameeda Nayeem, a civil rights activist and professor at Kashmir University.

She told IPS nearly 100 percent of the victims come from poor socio-economic backgrounds and belong to families who earn less than 95 dollars a month.

A technician at the the Hope Disability Centre in Kashmir preparing prosthetic limbs. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS

Qalandar Khan, a farm worker who was handicapped by a shell in 2012, is one such example. In the last year his family has spent 1,900 dollars on his treatment by selling off their cattle. The medical expenses have devoured their savings, and the loss of their animals has left them with almost no income since Qalandar was the family’s sole breadwinner.

“Now, the onus is on me and the kids,” his wife Reshma tells IPS. “Sometimes we don’t have enough to eat.”

Clinics providing free services are few and far between. One of them, the Hope Disability Centre, is currently treating 150 of the roughly 700 landmine victims, according to Director Sami Wani.

Working in collaboration with the Paris-based Handicap International, the NGO sends its coordinators into affected areas to identify families or victims in need of support, and even “provides prosthetics free of charge,” Wani told IPS.

Zahid Ahmad, coordinator of the northwestern Kupwara district for the Hope Disability Centre, says he found Qadir Sheikh in the village of Dardsun during one of his routine searches for victims.

“Had he not come, I would not have got my prosthesis,” Sheikh told IPS. He received basic training at the Centre and is now able to walk, but still cannot find a job. “I am worried about my two daughters, as I am not in a position to earn enough money to educate them.”

Rights activists say that the government should offer better compensation to those who have lost body parts and been rendered disabled.

“Most of these victims are now dependent on others,” Khurram Parvez, convener of the Srinagar-based Coalition of Civil Society (CCS), told IPS. “They should be compensated in a manner that allows them to lead dignified lives.”

Caregivers of victims who are bedridden, immobile, or otherwise unable to perform the most basic life functions are under enourmous pressure. In the village of Marhama, Habeed Lone sits by the side of his disabled wife Fata, who had both legs amputated after stepping on a mine on her way home from the family farm.

“We have six children and I have to take care of them and my wife single-handedly,” Lone tells IPS.

According to experts like Parvez, “It is the duty of security agencies to sanitise the surroundings of a place where they carry out combat operations,” adding that no effort has so far been made to raise awareness among the general public about the hazards involved in coming across these destructive shells.

When international human rights groups launch a global campaign next week to ban “fully autonomous weapons”, they will follow in the footsteps of the highly-successful 1990s collective worldwide effort to ban anti-personnel landmines and blinding lasers.

The new campaign, to be launched in London, will be aimed primarily at the United States: the only country with a formal policy on fully autonomous weapons, also called “killer robots”, equipped with the capacity to choose and fire on targets without human intervention."Giving machines the power to decide who lives and dies on the battlefield would take technology too far." -- HRW's Steve Goose

Asked about the tried and tested model campaign, Steve Goose, executive director of the Arms Division of Human Rights Watch (HRW), told IPS, “Yes, we envision the ‘Campaign to Stop Killer Robots’ functioning in a similar fashion to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), as well as the Cluster Munitions Coalition.”

Killer robots are considered more deadly than the predator drone, the U.S. weapon of choice against suspected terrorists in the current wave of targeted killings, particularly in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia.

According to HRW, fully autonomous weapons are in development in several countries and could be deployed within the next couple of decades.

Asked how drones differ from fully autonomous weapons, Goose said drones have a “man in the loop” – a human has remote control, a human selects the target and decides when to fire the weapon.”

A 50-page report titled “Losing Humanity: The Case Against Killer Robots” released last November expressed concern over these fully autonomous weapons, which would inherently lack human qualities that provide legal and non-legal checks on the killing of civilians.

The report was jointly published by HRW and the Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC).

“Giving machines the power to decide who lives and dies on the battlefield would take technology too far”, said Goose, pointing out that human control of robotic warfare is essential to minimising civilian deaths and injuries.

He said many of the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) deeply involved in the current efforts are part of the new campaign, although there are also some important new members.

“We are also looking at the prohibition on blinding lasers (1995 Protocol IV to the Convention on Conventional Weapons) as a model, in that it was also a pre-emptive ban, taking effect before the weapons were produced and fielded, as we are looking to do with fully autonomous weapons,” he said.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) led the charge on blinding lasers, said Goose, who was also chair of the ICBL and Cluster Munitions Coalition (ICBL-CMC).

Jayantha Dhanapala, a former U.N. under-secretary-general for Disarmament Affairs, told IPS that following on the success of the Arms Trade Treaty negotiations last month, and without prejudice to the campaign to ban the semi-autonomous drones, “We must prevent high-tech militaries of the more developed countries producing and deploying killer robots making accountability under international humanitarian law impossible.

“I am happy that the Pugwash Conferences for Science & World Affairs is with the coalition of civil society groups that is launching this important campaign to pre-empt the production of a new generation of fully autonomous robotic weapons,” said Dhanapala, president of Pugwash, a think tank comprising scientists and decision makers against nuclear weapons, and which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995.

The ICBL, a global network of more than 100 countries led by Jody Williams, won the Nobel Peace prize in 1997, and the treaty prohibiting the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel landmines was adopted in 1997 and came into force in 1999.

The United States is considered a leader in the technological development of killer robots, while several other countries, including China, Germany, Israel, South Korea, Russia, and the United Kingdom, have also been involved in acquiring or developing the technology.

“Many experts predict that full autonomy for weapons could be achieved in 20 to 30 years, and some think even sooner,” HRW said.

In the November report, both HRW and IHRC called for an international treaty that would absolutely prohibit the development, production, and use of fully autonomous weapons. They also called on individual nations to pass laws and adopt policies as important measures to prevent development, production, and use of such weapons at the domestic level.

Asked what countries will take the lead if a resolution to ban killer robots is brought before the United Nations, Goose told IPS the forum in which the issue of fully autonomous weapons will be taken up is an open question, and it is too early to answer.

He said it may depend on how the issue develops and what governments are leading the way.

“Likewise, it is too early to say what governments will want to champion this issue,” he added. “In our preliminary discussions, there are many governments that are very interested in and concerned about fully autonomous weapons.

“But we are at the very early stages — our campaign will not even be launched until next Tuesday,” he noted.

At an artificial limbs centre in Kabul. Credit: Najibullah Musafer/Killid/IPS.

By Esmatullah Mayar
KABUL, Mar 7 2013 (IPS)

Efforts to clear Afghanistan of landmines have been painfully slow. At least 45 people on average lose their limbs every month to deadly anti-personnel mines, according to the Mine Action Coordination Centre of Afghanistan, formerly a project of the UN Mine Action Service, and now a national entity.

Under the UN’s mine ban treaty, Afghanistan should have been free of landmines by the end of 2013. The country was granted until 2023 to clear all mined areas in Geneva in December last year.

Since 1997, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, a global network of non-governmental organisations, has been campaigning to make the world free of landmines and cluster ammunition. It has a presence in 90 countries including Afghanistan.

A signatory to the UN Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, or the Ottawa Convention as it is called, Afghanistan is littered with anti-personnel mines that are built to maim.

Demining activities were started in 1979. The work, which is extremely time-consuming, has meant that a million Afghans in an estimated population of 30 million still live in areas with unexploded ordinances.

At the prosthetic centre of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Kabul, 36-year-old Ghulam Siddiq of Khogiani district in Nangarhar province 200 km east of Kabul has come for an artificial leg. “I was cutting some grass in the mountain in the early evening when suddenly an explosion occurred,” he told Killid/IPS.

He said he could not believe he had lost a leg. “When I recovered consciousness I found myself in the hospital. My leg was cut below my knee. It was painful for me. I began to remonstrate with God: one side is poverty and the other side I have trouble with my leg. Then I kept my patience. This might be the will of God.”

Baz Mohammad is a 40-year-old resident of Shakardara district of Kabul who has also come to the ICRC centre to get artificial limbs. The ICRC has limb-fitting centres in Kabul, Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif, Gulbahar, Faizabad and Jalalabad.

He said he lost both legs in a landmine accident. “When I was loading wheat I stepped on a mine. I did not know what happened.”

There appears to be a lack of understanding among people about the slow pace of mine clearing work. There are also complaints that mine clearance is being undertaken in areas where mines do not exist. The areas that are being surveyed for mines are free of mines, some people say.

Dr Mohammad Dayem Kakar, head of the Afghan National Disaster Management Authority (ANDMA), addressed a meeting in Herat in December, before the start of demining operations in parts of Herat’s Karokh, Obi and Chesht Sahrif districts. He said mines were spread over 599 sq km.

“An estimated 3,000 people were killed or injured by mines and unexploded materials each month three years back,” he said. “But now the figure has decreased to 45 people each month.”

Kakar hoped that the contaminated areas in Herat would be cleared by 2018 and the whole country demined by 2023. Kakar praised the perilous work undertaken by demining organisations. “The mine is a danger for human beings, and our duty is to identify the areas and clear it.”

Mines were laid by the communist regime of Dr Najibullah, during the fighting with U.S.-supported mujahideen groups. Further mine-laying took place between 1996 and 2001 during the conflict between the Taliban government and the Northern Alliance led by Ahmad Shah Massoud. Landmines were planted also in residential areas and agricultural land, making Afghanistan one of the most mined countries in the world.

Farid Humayun, head of The HALO Trust, said 54 sq km were cleared over five years in three districts in Herat where the demining charity works. Another 12 districts, including the border districts of Ghorian, Kuhsan, Shindand and Adraskan in Herat will also be cleared, according to the plan. Halo is a demining charity based in Britain, and is the oldest and largest group engaged in demining work.

The HALO Trust, according to its website, has 200 mine clearance teams working in Herat and nine provinces of the northern and central regions. Between 1988 and May 2010, HALO destroyed more than 736,000 mines (195,000 emplaced mines and 541,000 stockpiled mines), 10 million items of large calibre ammunition and 45.6 million bullets.

At the Herat meeting in December, HALO’s director Humayun said their teams do not touch the new roadside bombs, the Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), placed by armed opponents of the Hamid Karzai government. These were the cause of 30 percent of civilian fatalities in the second half of 2012, according to the UN. A reported 967 people were killed and 1,590 injured.

Shahab Hakimi, head of the Mine Detection and Dog Centre (MDC), which trains dogs to do the dangerous work, urged donors to continue funding for the humanitarian mine-clearance efforts. He was hopeful the landmines littering the country could be cleared with continued funding and the efforts of non-governmental demining organisations.

Afghanistan will be able to meet its 2023 deadline, said Abigail Hartley, programme manager of the UN Mine Action Services.

*Esmatullah Mayar writes for Killid, an independent Afghan media group in partnership with IPS.