GENEVA, Switzerland — Syria overtook Afghanistan last year as the
country with the highest number of recorded casualties from landmines and
explosive remnants of war, a monitoring group said Wednesday.
اضافة اعلان
The Landmine Monitor said Syria had registered the most victims for the first
time since its annual reports began in 1999, with 2,729 people either killed or
injured.
Colombia recorded the most casualties from 2005 to 2007, and Afghanistan has
recorded the most since then until last year.
Globally in 2020, the report said at least 7,073 casualties of mines and
explosive remnants of war, including 2,492 deaths, were recorded across 54
territories.
The overall number of casualties was below the peak of 9,440 reached in
2016, but up from 5,853 in 2019.
"This was mostly the result of increased armed conflict and
contamination with mines of an improvised nature," the monitor said.
The number remains far higher than the all-time low of 3,456 registered in
2013.
Some 164 countries are bound by the landmark Mine Ban Treaty struck in 1997.
"The continued high number of casualties and disappointingly slow
clearance outputs highlight serious and persistent challenges to treaty
implementation," said monitor editor Marion Loddo.
"If we are to reach a mine-free world, states must redouble their efforts
toward speedy implementation of their obligations and a much more efficient
distribution of resources among all affected states and territories."
Where the age, combat status and gender of victims were known, 80 percent of
casualties were civilians — of which half were children — while males made up
85 percent of the victims.
New mines in
Myanmar
From mid-2020 to October 2021, Myanmar was the only country whose state
forces had used anti-personnel mines, it found.
There were indications that new use of anti-personnel mines happened during
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in late 2020, but they could not be confirmed.
In Syria, the monitor could not confirm any new use of anti-personnel mines
by Syrian government or Russian forces, but armed groups "likely continued
to use improvised landmines, as in previous years", it said.
Meanwhile non-state armed groups were found to have used anti-personnel
mines in Afghanistan, Colombia, India, Myanmar, Nigeria, and Pakistan, while
alleged uses in seven other countries could not be confirmed.
"Ongoing use of mines by non-state armed groups is particularly
worrisome and more can be done to prevent anyone from using these
weapons," said Mark Hiznay, the monitor's ban policy editor.
Clearance and
stockpiles
Nearly 146 square kilometers (56 square miles) of land was reported cleared
of landmines last year, with more than 135,000 anti-personnel mines destroyed.
Sri Lanka completed the destruction of its stockpile in 2021 -- the 94th
country to do so.
As last year, the monitor identified 12 states as still producing
anti-personnel mines: China, Cuba, India, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Pakistan,
Russia, Singapore, South Korea, the United States and Vietnam.
The 23rd annual report is produced by the Landmine and Cluster Munition
Monitor, the research and monitoring arm of the International Campaign to Ban
Landmines and the Cluster Munition Coalition NGOs.
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