1. What are landmines?
2. What about anti-vehicle landmines?
3. Why are landmines laid?
4. Why are landmines left behind?
5. Why are bombs and other weapons left behind?
6. What makes landmines explode?
7. What makes unexploded bombs explode?
8. What do landmines do that other weapons don’t do?
9. How are landmines laid?
10. Why don’t those who use landmines and bombs clear them afterwards?
11. Is it possible to describe the scale of the landmine problem?
12. How difficult is it to detect and disable landmines?
13. What kinds of methods are currently used to detect and disable landmines?
14. Do you think efforts to remove landmines are getting enough support from governments?
15. What is the Ottawa Treaty?
There are anti-personnel and anti-vehicle landmines. Generally they are explosive devices with an outer structure made of either plastic, wood, metal, Bakelite, rubber and even glass and inside there will be a fuse, a detonator and explosives. Some contain thousands of pieces of shrapnel, designed to fire out to great distances, others contain no metal at all and are difficult to detect. Landmines are often round and range from the diameter of a small paperweight to a large tin of sweets or, in the case of anti-vehicle landmines, as large as dinner plates. Anti-personnel landmines can also be square or shaped like a butterfly, others are cylindrical with spikes that stick out of the ground. Homemade copies are called improvised explosive devices (IEDs). There are different injuries sustained by landmines due to the varying types:
• Blast landmines are pressure-activated and generally produce injuries from the explosive going off;
• Fragmentation landmines (various types) contain shrapnel which usually get fired into the victim;
• Bounding fragmentation landmines jump out of the ground to waist level when activated and fire thousands of deadly fragments; in some cases to a radius of around 100m.
2. What about other landmines?
Anti-vehicle or anti-tank landmines are larger and take greater pressure to activate. They can rip through vehicles when disturbed and cause devastating damage to drivers and passengers. These landmines do not come under the Ottawa Treaty (see What is the Ottawa Treaty?). An innocent person’s vehicle could most certainly activate an anti-vehicle landmine. Also not falling under the Ottawa Treaty is the Claymore. This is a ‘directional’ fragmentation landmine designed to be ‘trigger-activated’ rather than detonated by an indiscriminate person and therefore bypassing the treaty. However the Claymore is often rigged up with a trip-wire which can be tripped by anybody.
A question rarely asked but highly significant. Those in armed conflicts often wish to protect their own positions, look-out posts, ammunition stores, depots, access routes and roads and much more and in some cases landmines are used to protect these areas. Also, where many countries protect their borders with safe official controls (the type we come across when traveling by road from one country to the next) a few countries restrict entry into their countries by the more severe methods of laying landmines.Landmines can also be laid under duress. If a community is being captured by a rebel group some people are forced to protect their own surrounding areas by laying mines. Once the rebels retreat the community is still left mined and dangerous.
4. Why are landmines left behind?
When position points come under attack there is often a quick retreat and those leaving their areas may leave behind what they can’t carry with them – in armed conflict this can include landmines. Some will simply leave their positions or retreat in the hope that their enemy will fall foul of the landmines they have left behind. And countries who wish to protect their borders with landmines won’t allow you to remove them. Also, countries that have signed the Ottawa Treaty may still hold stockpiles of landmines in large stores waiting to be destroyed and this takes time and care.
5. Why are bombs and other weapons left behind?
Other remnants of armed conflict that are dropped or thrown such as mortars, grenades, cluster bombs etc. simply malfunction. It’s thought anywhere between 2 - 20 per cent fail to detonate on impact. There could be many reasons why an item doesn’t work as expected; when released from the air, the aircraft may be too low, too high, the ground conditions might not be right etc. But once it has failed to detonate it remains dangerous on the ground until someone disables or detonates it. There are also stockpiles of arms and weapons that are often left behind or stored and these also need to be secured and destroyed.
6. What makes landmines explode?
Most landmines that are in the ground are prepared for detonation and therefore dangerous and can be activated by applying some pressure to the top; usually by stepping on them (though cows and sheep are known to be decapitated by grazing over them). Stockpiled landmines and bombs are usually stored in large containers or in piles and a false move could set off a massive explosion.
7. What makes unexploded bombs explode?
Moving them, digging or ploughing over them, dropping them, trying to get the precious metal from them or just playing with them can set off an unexploded bomb/ordnance (UXO).
8. What do landmines do that other weapons don’t do?
Landmines (and other live ordnance left in the ground) are unique as none of them needs an expert to explode it; they can be left for anyone to trigger them accidentally; even a child. Landmines are designed to injure terribly as it is said injured soldiers destabilise a platoon much more, so the knock-on effect of medical, rehabilitation costs from one detonation can be huge; any number of people can be affected from one accident. They’re unique because they are indiscriminate and this ‘hostage factor’ can affect entire communities; the way people live, work and play. Also unique is the psychological burden from landmines; once triggered a victim has no choice but to be injured or killed; this fear changes the way people live and act.
They can be buried under the surface of the ground so they can’t be seen or just below the surface, either by hand (depending on how quickly they need to laid) or by using special vehicles. Some can even be laid by air.
10. Why don’t those who use landmines and bombs clear them afterwards?
Some do but we simply don’t know if that clearance targets vast areas that affect people’s lives and livelihoods first or whether the clearance targets deserted land first. MAG exists because of its humanitarian aims so we leave the desert areas for later while our first targets are where people live, work, study, farm land etc. We do it through surveys, community liaison, tapping into local knowledge and local authorities and agencies. Our work entails more than plain conflict clearance so even if there are others who clear after conflict we can’t be sure they have the same approach we do.
11. Is it possible to describe the scale of the landmine problem?
More than 80 countries are affected by remnants of armed conflict. The number of landmines that contaminates the world is unknown but should be counted in millions. In human terms it is estimated that between 15,000 and 20,000 become casualties every year – that’s around one person every 20 minutes. In some countries about one third of casualties of landmines and other remnants of armed conflict are children. The devastation is much wider than physical; living on mined land can affect every aspect of a person’s daily life when fear of doing the simplest things is the first thing on their mind.
12. How difficult is it to detect and disable landmines?
Different types of landmines pose different threats to those who clear them. Anti-vehicle landmines are usually easier to detect. However, some can be fitted with anti-handling devices – or booby traps - which are designed to initiate the landmine if it is tampered with. Many anti-personnel landmines are made of plastic and have minimum metal content (usually just a firing pin, and the metal jacket of a detonator). Hi-tech metal detectors are used and these landmines can be found (a mine detector does not exist at the moment). However it is slow and painstaking work because of the care that must be taken not only to locate the landmine but to ensure that 100 per cent of the contaminated land is searched without missing any items. The hard work has been done once the landmine has been detected and identified. The next step is to either destroy it in situ or make it safe (disarm it) and destroy it at a later date.
13. What kinds of methods are currently used to detect and disable landmines?
There are a number of tools to detect and destroy landmines. MAG’s include manual methods, mechanical methods and the use of mine detection dogs. These are often referred to as the ‘tool box’ approach to landmine clearance. What there isn’t is a silver bullet approach to clearance; it often combines a set of tools working in unison. In nearly every case manual demining is able to rise to the challenges that all remnants of conflict pose (other items of explosive ordnance are often present in minefields).
Mechanical demining and dog support do have limitations and need to be more focused in the right areas to maximise their impact. Remote-controlled mechanical machines can be used in the role of scrub-cutting to remove undergrowth in preparation for manual or dog searches in the area. And mechanical flails (large machines with heavy chains/rollers) are used to detonate landmines. However, the land that they have worked on still needs to be verified 100 per cent by either manual means or by using dogs. An important advantage with remote-controlled machines is the safety aspect in terms of minimising risks to manual deminers.
However in some countries transporting a large flail machine over rickety bridges is impossible so the solutions have to be appropriate. Other techniques are used to improve the process; every time we clear a landmine we place a marker in its place and sometimes the markers reveal a pattern. This pattern will let our experts know if they can reduce the area by using machines or dogs and expose the area that needs the manual clearance by metal detection - this means the areas that require inch-by-inch clearance will be less. We call this ‘area reduction’. Other landmines are laid randomly so every inch of the suspect area needs to be cleared. The advantage of integrating these tools and carefully choosing what tasks they are assigned to results in greater productivity and quality of service.
14. Do you think efforts to remove landmines are getting enough support from governments?
Governments fund the majority of MAG’s work and in partnership with these donors we have made a significant impact on people’s lives and safety. Unfortunately landmines are still being laid and left behind and, as with everyone in the mine action community, we’d rather there was no more work for us to do. But while there are conflicts there are humanitarian needs and we will continue to push into those areas that need our support. Our vision is a world where people can build their futures free from the impact of landmines and other remnants of armed conflict and we will continue to work with others - whether that’s with governments, institutions or with ordinary people - who share that vision.
15. What is the Ottawa Treaty?
An important aspect of ridding the world of landmines is the Ottawa Treaty formed in 1997. MAG’s executive director Lou McGrath is co-laureate of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize because of his work in bringing this forward with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. This treaty is now ratified, or approved, by 151 countries and this ensures that signatories do not use, produce, stockpile or transfer landmines (anti-personnel landmines only). This has helped reduce the reliance on landmines during conflict and the use of them by others has become marginalized and but there are still around 15 countries which produce landmines. The treaty also doesn’t stop any signatory from using anti-vehicle mines. Ultimately the landmines that target innocent people and have already been laid still need to be dealt with.
