Latest news with #LandmineMonitor
New York Times
30-04-2025
- Health
- New York Times
Tackling a Deadly Legacy in Syria
When rebels toppled Bashar al-Assad's regime in December, families quickly began returning home to areas near the front lines of the 14-year civil war — including in Idlib Province, in northwestern a Syrian instinct, says Ali Shaloom, director of the Shifa hospital in Idlib. 'Even if the house is destroyed, I would go and drink a cup of tea in front of my house just because I can.' But the end of the fighting wasn't the end of the danger. In this area, Assad forces planted landmines in fields, in buildings, even in rubble, and other unexploded ordnance also lingers. Mr. Shaloom estimates it puts one to five civilians in Shifa hospital mine wounded Jaber Siham Mohammed Mattar, 12. It exploded, he says, as he tried to free a sheep he was herding from barbed wire. 'I didn't feel anything,' he recalls. He woke with a broken leg, internal bleeding and wounds to his intestines, arms, back and legs. According to the Landmine Monitor, which tracks global landmine use and casualties, Syria last year had the second-highest number of casualties due to mines worldwide. While exact statistics are difficult to confirm, HALO, a nonprofit that clears landmines and explosives, estimates that about 340 people have been killed across Syria and another 500 wounded since the overthrow of the Assad regime. It says it's receiving 10 times the number of calls it did before the regime fell. Once the HALO team has found a device, the safest way to get rid of it is a controlled explosion, triggered by a small charge on a long cord. Devices that aren't fused, and are therefore safe to move, are taken to a demolition site in the middle of a field. But if a mine is armed, it has to be blown up where it sits. Unexploded ordnance poses the most danger to young men, according to HALO. To earn money for their families, young men clear rubble, clean fields and gather scrap metal and wood, all high-risk activities. They are also more likely to travel for work, potentially stepping on mines on their way. Children suffer, too. While playing outside, they mistake unexploded shells or other devices for toys, picking them up and throwing them around. 'A number of these items are brightly colored, shiny objects with interesting shapes, which children would be naturally drawn to,' says Nicholas Torbet, HALO's deputy regional director for the Middle East. Yousef al-Nayef, 10, was wounded by a mine while playing with friends in a field in Harshbenin village. Khalid Hussein, 25, said the community had forced former regime soldiers to help clear his fields: 'They even brought the military leader who planted the mines.' He then returned to planting cumin. But the soldiers hadn't spotted a rocket nearby. Mohammed Sheikh Mohammed, the leader of the demining team at HALO, tried to discourage Mr. Hussein from farming until the area was properly searched. 'If 90 percent of the mines are removed, and 10 percent are left, it is unsafe.' 'People don't wait. They need to use their lands, homes, and pastures, and this is what causes most of the accidents.' Several families said they had encountered explosives after trusting reassurances from local farmers or security Aboud, 47, said her family returned to a former frontline town, only for her son, Kanaan Muhamad Kanaan, 18, to touch a tripwire while collecting firewood. It detonated two minesin trees, which inflicted brain injuries. 'There are mines everywhere — on trees, on the ground, inside the houses, and all around them,' Aisha Aboud said. 'It drives you crazy.' Iman Ibrahim, 38, knows the risks intimately. She said she and her family stayed off their land in Kfar Amma village for six years during the war. After hearing that mines had been removed, they went to gather olives. 'I heard the sound of an explosion, but I thought it was a nearby factory,' she said. Instead, a land mine had killed her husband and daughter. Abed Kontar, a spokesman for the authorities in Idlib, acknowledged that local fighters had done 'makeshift' clearance but said that the defense ministry was now deploying specialist crews. Still, Ms. Ibrahim, and others in the community, remain uneasy. 'We are very afraid of the land now. We won't take any step on the land again.'
Japan Times
08-04-2025
- Politics
- Japan Times
Pivot by some countries toward landmine use appalls experts
Moves by five NATO countries to quit a treaty banning the use of landmines have experts worried, ahead of a Geneva meeting aiming to boost efforts on ridding the world of the explosive ordnance. The decisions announced by Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland over the past three weeks are "a dangerous setback for the protection of civilians in armed conflict," the International Committee of the Red Cross said. The first four countries said in a March 18 joint statement that "Russia's aggression" — evinced by its all-out invasion of Ukraine — forced them to start moves to pull out of the 1997 Ottawa Treaty aimed at eliminating anti-personnel landmines. Finland followed suit last week with a similar announcement. The steps come ahead of a three-day meeting starting Wednesday in Geneva organised by the U.N. Mine Action Service (UNMAS) and the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD). Tobias Privitelli, head of the GICHD, admitted to reporters that the meeting would take place in a "challenging environment." Progress made over decades in ridding the world of landmines was at risk, he said. UNMAS's head of policy and advocacy, James Staples, said nearly 60 countries or territories, from Ukraine to Myanmar to Sudan and Syria, are affected by explosive ordinance, and "millions of people suffer from their impact on a daily basis." Adding to the headwinds faced by their two organizations was U.S. funding cuts to foreign aid. While the United States is not among the 160 signatories of the Ottawa Treaty, it had been the single biggest national funder of mine action. Washington had been providing over $300 million a year, or around 40% of total international support, according to the 2024 Landmine Monitor. "The funding that they have provided ... has undoubtedly saved lives and made a difference to hundreds of thousands," Staples said. While some short-term waivers have been granted to some programmes, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) cautioned that long-term funding was uncertain, with thousands of trained deminers currently sidelined. In the three decades of the treaty's existence, the number of people killed or maimed by landmines went from 25,000 to below 5,800 in 2023, and millions of landmines destroyed worldwide, according to the Landmine Monitor. Staples said that, when other types of explosive remnants of war, like cluster munitions and IEDs (improvised explosive devices), were factored in, the number of casualties reached around 15,000 in 2023. The vast majority of victims of explosive ordnance — 85% — are civilians, and more than half of them are children, Privitelli noted. He said that, in many territories, the threat of landmines lingers for decades after the end of a conflict, posing a persistent hidden threat.
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Rat breaks world record for sniffing out wartime landmines
An African giant pouched rat is being honored in the record books after detecting more than 100 landmines and other undetonated explosives in Cambodia, Belgian non-profit APOPO announced Friday. The rat, named Ronin, was named APOPO's most successful Mine Detection Rat. He also was acknowledged by the Guinness World Records. Since August 2021, Ronin has detected 109 landmines and 15 items of unexploded ordnance, APOPO said. The record-smashing rodent is expected to do another two years or more of detection work, the non-profit said. "Ronin's achievements are a testament to the incredible potential of positive reinforcement training. He's not just an asset; he's a valued partner and colleague," said Phanny, Ronin's handler, in a news release from APOPO. The previous record was held by the African giant pouched rat Magawa, who detected 71 landmines and 38 pieces of unexploded ordnance over the course of five years. APOPO has been training mine-detecting rats for over 25 years. Ronin underwent clicker training, where the rat learns to associate the sound of a click with a treat, to motivate him to learn how to smell explosives. He was also trained to work systemically within a grid pattern and to indicate landmines by scratching at the ground. Ronin and rats like him work for about 30 minutes a day, APOPO said. When they reach a certain age, they are moved to a retirement community and remain under APOPO's care. Magawa, the previous record-holder, was retired in 2021 and died in 2022. Undetonated landmines and ordnance are a huge problem in Cambodia. Decades of conflict have left up to six million unexploded munitions in the country's soil, according to the Landmine Monitor's 2024 report. Since 1979, those buried bombs have caused about 20,000 deaths and 45,000 injuries, the Landmine Monitor reported. Demining efforts have been underway for decades, including the work done by Ronin and other APOPO rats. In 2023, there were only 32 reported casualties involving landmines in Cambodia, according to the Landmine Monitor. The site does not distinguish between injuries and deaths when referring to casualties. The APOPO's efforts are not limited to Cambodia. The non-profit estimates that about 110 million landmines are buried across 60 countries. In 2023, 1,431 deaths were connected to these landmines. The agency said it continues to work to remove landmines and unexploded ordnance from the world. "When we launched APOPO, the common view was that it would take around 500 years to clear all landmines from the Earth's surface," said Christine Cox, the CEO of APOPO. "25 years later, there is light at the end of the tunnel, and if the international community fully supports the collaboration of all demining operators, we could clear the remaining minefields in our lifetime." Kentucky whiskey producers react to Trump tariffs From viral floor routine to national champion, first HBCU gymnast breaks barriers Bernie Sanders: U.S. now a 'pseudo-democracy'
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Ronin the rat sets new landmine-sniffing record
A landmine-detecting rat in Cambodia has set a new world record to become the first rodent to uncover more than 100 mines and other deadly war remnants. Ronin, an African giant pouched rat, has uncovered 109 landmines and 15 items of unexploded ordnance since 2021, charity Apopo, which trains the animals, said in a statement. Cambodia remains littered with millions of unexploded munitions following about 20 years of civil war that ended in 1998. The Guinness Book of World Records said that Ronin's "crucial work" is making a real difference to people who have had to live with the "fear that one misstep while going about their day-to-day lives could be their last." Apopo, which is based in Tanzania, currently has 104 rodent recruits, or HeroRATS, as the non-profit likes to call them. The rats are trained to sniff out chemicals that are found in landmines and other weapons abandoned on battlefields. Because of their small size, the rats are not heavy enough to detonate the mines. The rats can check an area the size of a tennis court in about 30 minutes, the charity says, whereas a human with a metal detector might take four days to clear the same land. They can also detect tuberculosis, an infectious disease that commonly affects the lungs, far quicker than it would be found in a lab using conventional microscopy, Apopo says. Ronin's impressive work in Cambodia's northern Preah Vihear province has surpassed the previous record held Magawa, a rat who sniffed out 71 mines and was presented with a gold medal for his heroism in 2020. Since Apopo's work began 25 years ago, the organisation has cleared 169,713 landmines and other explosives worldwide - more than 52,000 have been in Cambodia. The charity also works in other countries affected by war, including Ukraine, South Sudan and Azerbaijan. There are still an estimated four to six million landmines and other exploded munitions buried in Cambodia, according to the Landmine Monitor.
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Ronin the rat sets new landmine-sniffing record
A landmine-detecting rat in Cambodia has set a new world record to become the first rodent to uncover more than 100 mines and other deadly war remnants. Ronin, an African giant pouched rat, has uncovered 109 landmines and 15 items of unexploded ordnance since 2021, charity Apopo, which trains the animals, said in a statement. Cambodia remains littered with millions of unexploded munitions following about 20 years of civil war that ended in 1998. The Guinness Book of World Records said that Ronin's "crucial work" is making a real difference to people who have had to live with the "fear that one misstep while going about their day-to-day lives could be their last." Apopo, which is based in Tanzania, currently has 104 rodent recruits, or HeroRATS, as the non-profit likes to call them. The rats are trained to sniff out chemicals that are found in landmines and other weapons abandoned on battlefields. Because of their small size, the rats are not heavy enough to detonate the mines. The rats can check an area the size of a tennis court in about 30 minutes, the charity says, whereas a human with a metal detector might take four days to clear the same land. They can also detect tuberculosis, an infectious disease that commonly affects the lungs, far quicker than it would be found in a lab using conventional microscopy, Apopo says. Ronin's impressive work in Cambodia's northern Preah Vihear province has surpassed the previous record held Magawa, a rat who sniffed out 71 mines and was presented with a gold medal for his heroism in 2020. Since Apopo's work began 25 years ago, the organisation has cleared 169,713 landmines and other explosives worldwide - more than 52,000 have been in Cambodia. The charity also works in other countries affected by war, including Ukraine, South Sudan and Azerbaijan. There are still an estimated four to six million landmines and other exploded munitions buried in Cambodia, according to the Landmine Monitor.
