More people face danger from mines than 2 years ago: Int'l Red Cross

By Peter Kenny

GENEVA (AA) - More people today face danger from mines and unexploded ordnances compared to two years ago, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Monday.

For International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action on Tuesday (April 4), Erik Tollefsen, the head of the weapons contamination unit for the ICRC, highlighted the alarming trend.

"More people today face danger from mines and unexploded ordnances than even two years ago due to fighting in Ukraine and Ethiopia that has contaminated wide swaths of neighborhoods and farmland," said Tollefsen.

"Life-altering injuries too many people have already suffered show how everyday activities like planting a garden or even walking in one's community take on a deadly level of risk."

Tollefsen said children are particularly vulnerable to the damage caused by these explosive weapons.

The effects of landmines and explosive remnants of war on people living in, returning to, or passing through contaminated areas will endure for years, said the ICRC.

Late in 2022, the ICRC said that while mines and unexploded ordnances had been a long-standing danger in the region around Ukraine, the risk they pose increased exponentially from last February.

Swaths of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions were already heavily contaminated with unexploded ordnance following eight years of conflict.

That has multiplied since Russia launched a full-scale war on Ukraine in February 2022.

Even before the war started, Ukraine was home to ICRC's largest weapons contamination team.

Last year marked 25 years since the adoption and opening for signature of the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, and 30 years since the creation of the 1992 International Campaign to Ban Landmines.

In August 2022, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Russian forces' repeated use of cluster munitions caused predictable and lasting harm to hundreds of Ukrainian civilians.

In its Cluster Munition Monitor 2022 report, HRW said both Russia and Ukraine should reject the use of cluster munitions and join the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions.