Myanmar has become the worlds most dangerous place for landmine incidents‚ with over 1‚000 people hurt or killed last year (which is more than war-torn Syriaʼs 933 victims)
The south-east Asian nation saw a big-time rise in mine use since mid-2023; both the ruling military and anti-government groups are laying these death-traps everywhere. Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan‚ who studies Myanmar for Landmine Monitor says “the real number is surely higher because theres no good way to track all cases“
Global statistics paint a scary picture - mines and leftover war explosives hurt or killed 5‚757 people worldwide last year:
- 84% were regular people not soldiers
- 1‚498 were kids
- Over 500 victims in both Ukraine and Afghanistan
- 499 people got hurt in Yemen even after fighting stopped
The military (which took power about 3 years ago) does some really bad stuff - they make locals walk first in mine-areas as human-shields. In mid-2024 this led to one death and two injuries in central Myanmar; similar thing happened in fall-2023 when 8 people were used as shields and one got hurt
This is a grave violation of international humanitarian and human rights law
Clean-up work goes on but its super-slow: teams cleared 160‚500 mines from about 282 square kilometers of land worldwide last year. Anne Héry from Humanity & Inclusion points out that “areas stay dangerous for many years after wars end“