MADRID 20 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Anti-personnel mines caused more than 5,700 victims in 2023, according to a report that warns of the special incidence of this type of weaponry among the civilian population, as evidenced by the fact that 84 percent of the dead and injured were people unrelated to the the parties to the conflict, more than a third of whom are minors.
The study published each year by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, a coalition of NGOs, has detected 5,757 new victims of mines and explosive remains, 1,983 of them resulting in death, in more than fifty territories.
The Mine Ban Treaty that came into force at the beginning of 1999 proposes moving towards the total elimination of this type of weaponry, considered especially dangerous because it not only causes victims in the middle of the conflict but also implies risks in the medium and long term.
In 2023, NGOs confirmed the cleanup of more than 281 square kilometers of land contaminated by mines and the destruction of more than 160,000 artifacts. Thanks to the treaty, 33 countries have already eliminated all mines from their territory, but experts fear that progress will be reversed.
Countries such as Russia or Burma, which are not part of the treaty, have used this type of weapons in the last year. In the case of Burma, for the first time it appears as the country with the highest number of victims, with 1,003 registered in all of 2024, after three consecutive years with Syria in the lead.
The report also puts the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and North Korean forces in focus, since both would have used anti-personnel mines in 2023 and in the first half of 2024.
One of those responsible for the report, Mark Hiznay, associate director on Arms at Human Rights Watch (HRW), has denounced that these new uses by countries outside the global agreement “threaten both the lives of civilians and the effectiveness of this treaty that life jacket”.
In addition, non-state armed groups have also used these types of devices in Colombia, India, Burma, Pakistan and the Sahel, as well as in the Gaza Strip. In this Palestinian territory, the armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzeldin al Qassam Brigades, have recognized its use after the October 2023 attacks.
THE ROLE OF THE UNITED STATES
The United States is not on the list of 164 countries that have already joined – it is the only NATO country that is not part of the treaty -, despite the fact that the current president, Joe Biden, even proposed mid-2022 their interest in moving towards the signature.
Biden’s plan also clashes with the approval of sending anti-personnel mines to Ukraine, in an apparent attempt to help Ukrainian forces reinforce the front lines to stop the Russian advance, as reported this Wednesday by several US media outlets such as ‘The Washington Post’ or CNN.