Halo Trust Calls for Focus on Peace Efforts, Mine Clearance in Yemen

Saudi Arabia’s Masam project has removed over half a million mines and unexploded ordnance in Yemen. (Masam)
Saudi Arabia’s Masam project has removed over half a million mines and unexploded ordnance in Yemen. (Masam)
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Halo Trust Calls for Focus on Peace Efforts, Mine Clearance in Yemen

Saudi Arabia’s Masam project has removed over half a million mines and unexploded ordnance in Yemen. (Masam)
Saudi Arabia’s Masam project has removed over half a million mines and unexploded ordnance in Yemen. (Masam)

Five months since the Iran-backed Houthi militias launched their first attack on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, an international organization called for a renewed focus on humanitarian development and peace efforts in Yemen, where people continue to endure one of the worst landmine and unexploded ordnance (UXO) crises in the world.

The HALO Trust, a humanitarian mine clearance organization, said in a statement last week that during the 2022 ceasefire, there was a 160% increase in UXO and mine accidents as people tried to return to their homes in Taiz.

“It is imperative that we don't forget the ordinary Yemeni men, women, and children living day-to-day in severe humanitarian need, and the dangers posed by unexploded weapons near their homes and communities,” Matt Smith, head of Region for Middle East and North Africa.

He said most of HALO’s work in Yemen is in crowded and complex urban environments and close to active frontlines and former battlefields, meaning it requires different skills and greater community liaison compared with clearance in rural areas.

Since 2019, HALO Yemen has been clearing mines and other explosives in the frontline in Taiz, a city divided by battle lines between the north and south of the country for the last nine years.

“Despite airstrikes under 20km away, and daily exchanges of fire across frontlines in the city, our teams haven't stopped working in the last six months,” said Smith.

As the only international NGO doing this work in Taiz city, HALO teams have responded to more than 100 call-outs to remove or destroy various dangerous items and has cleared minefields with trained teams and armored machines, handing safe land back to communities that regularly experience fatal or life-changing accidents.

Daily threats

Smith said that in many places, explosives including mines, rockets, mortars, anti-aircraft rounds and IEDs are found among homes, clinics, schools, and other amenities.

“These pose a daily threat to Yemeni civilians, particularly children. Many children are injured while they play, or when collecting scrap metal to sell and help feed their families,” he noted.

So far, HALO demining teams have made two million square meters of land safe in Taiz and Aden - the equivalent of around 280 football pitches - so that people can go to work and markets safely, and children can walk to school and play outside without fear of losing a limb, or worse.

Smith said that during the 2022 ceasefire, there was a 160% increase in UXO and mine accidents as people tried to return to their homes in Taiz, illustrating that mine action activities will need to play an integral part in the peace process for peacebuilding efforts to be successful.

“Urban recovery and reconstruction will also be hampered if the amount of explosive ordnance present in urban areas across Yemen isn’t addressed,” he warned.

The Halo Trust also affirmed that clearance of landmines and explosives is needed on key roads along frontlines proposed for re-opening under a UN-brokered truce.

The organization said it works closely with the Office of the UN Special Envoy (OSESGY) and other actors to address the complex threat should parties reach an agreement.



Blinken Demands Overhaul of Israeli Conduct in West Bank after Killing of US Protester

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a press conference with Britain's Foreign Secretary David Lammy (not pictured) as part of a strategic dialogue at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in London, Britain, 10 September 2024. (EPA)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a press conference with Britain's Foreign Secretary David Lammy (not pictured) as part of a strategic dialogue at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in London, Britain, 10 September 2024. (EPA)
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Blinken Demands Overhaul of Israeli Conduct in West Bank after Killing of US Protester

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a press conference with Britain's Foreign Secretary David Lammy (not pictured) as part of a strategic dialogue at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in London, Britain, 10 September 2024. (EPA)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a press conference with Britain's Foreign Secretary David Lammy (not pictured) as part of a strategic dialogue at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in London, Britain, 10 September 2024. (EPA)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday demanded an overhaul of Israeli military conduct in the occupied West Bank as he decried the fatal shooting of an American protester against settlement expansion, which Israel said was accidental.

Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, who is also a Turkish national, was shot dead last Friday at a protest march in Beita, a village near Nablus where Palestinians have been repeatedly attacked by far-right Jewish settlers.

Israel's military said on Tuesday that its initial inquiry found it was highly likely its troops had fired the shot that killed her but that her death was unintentional, and it voiced deep regret.

In his strongest comments to date criticizing the security forces of Washington's closest Middle East ally, Blinken described Eygi's killing as "unprovoked and unjustified". He said Washington would insist to the Israeli government that it makes changes to how its forces operate in the West Bank.

"No one should be shot and killed for attending a protest. No one should have to put their life at risk just for freely expressing their views," he told reporters in London.

"In our judgment, Israeli security forces need to make some fundamental changes in the way that they operate in the West Bank, including changes to their rules of engagement.

"Now we have the second American citizen killed at the hands of Israeli security forces. It's not acceptable," he said.

An Israeli government spokesperson declined to comment on Blinken's remarks.

The Israeli military said an investigation by the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division was under way and its findings would be submitted for higher-level review once completed.

"We're going to be watching that very, very closely," White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters, saying a criminal probe was an unusual step by Israel's military.

"We're going to want to see where it goes now in terms of the criminal investigation and what they find, and if and how anyone is held accountable," Kirby added.

Eygi's family called the preliminary inquiry "wholly inadequate" and urged US President Joe Biden to demand an independent investigation.

PRELIMINARY INQUIRY

In a statement, the Israeli military said its commanders had conducted an initial investigation into the incident and found that the gunfire was not aimed at her but another individual it called "the key instigator of the riot."

"The incident took place during a violent riot in which dozens of Palestinian suspects burned tires and hurled rocks towards security forces at the Beita Junction," it said.

Israel has sent a request to Palestinian authorities to carry out an autopsy, it said.

"We are deeply offended by the suggestion that her killing by a trained sniper was in any way unintentional," Eygi's family said in a statement.

A surge in violent settler assaults on Palestinians in the West Bank has stirred anger among Western allies of Israel, including the United States, which has imposed sanctions on some Israelis involved in the hardline settler movement. Tensions have been heightened amid Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza.

Palestinians have held weekly protests in Beita since 2020 over the expansion of nearby Evyatar, a settler outpost. Ultra-nationalist members of Israel's ruling coalition have acted to legalize previously unauthorized outposts like Evyatar, a move Washington says threatens the stability of the West Bank and undercuts efforts toward a two-state solution to the conflict.

Since the 1967 Middle East war, Israel has occupied the West Bank of the Jordan River, an area Palestinians want as the core of a future independent state.

Israel has built a thickening array of settlements there that most countries deem illegal. Israel disputes that assertion, citing historical and biblical ties to the territory.