Global Death Toll of Landmines Rises Due to Mines Laid by Militants

A member of the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) demining team searches for landmines in Khazer, Iraq December 1, 2016. REUTERS/Khalid al Mousily/File Photo
A member of the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) demining team searches for landmines in Khazer, Iraq December 1, 2016. REUTERS/Khalid al Mousily/File Photo
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Global Death Toll of Landmines Rises Due to Mines Laid by Militants

A member of the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) demining team searches for landmines in Khazer, Iraq December 1, 2016. REUTERS/Khalid al Mousily/File Photo
A member of the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) demining team searches for landmines in Khazer, Iraq December 1, 2016. REUTERS/Khalid al Mousily/File Photo

The global casualty toll of landmines doubled in 2018 from a 2013 low due to conflicts in Afghanistan, Syria, and Mali and mostly due to the increased use of improvised landmines set by militant groups such as ISIS.

Representatives from affected nations, non-governmental organizations and donor countries are gathered in Oslo this week to discuss how to achieve the stated aim of making the world free of landmines in 2025.

Landmines killed or injured some 6,897 people in 2018, according to the Landmine Monitor report by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Some 71% of the casualties were civilians, and of these, over half were children, it said.

In 2018, most casualties were due to improvised explosive devices (IEDs) laid by non-state groups, the report added.

The lowest globally recorded number was set at 3,457 casualties in 2013.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Soereide said that in order to reduce the casualty toll it was necessary to engage with non-state actors, acknowledging that it was “very difficult” to do.

“We have to take on that challenge,” Soereide said in an interview. The Nordic country is one of the top donor countries for demining work, with $40 million pledged to 20 countries in 2018 and 2019 respectively. No new money will be pledged at this week’s conference.

IRAQ
Iraq is the world’s most contaminated country with landmines, partly due to the mines laid by ISIS to defend the territory it once controlled over Iraq and Syria.

Iraq was already heavily contaminated as a result of the 2003 invasion by the US-led coalition, the 1991 Gulf War, and the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

But this has only increased since ISIS' presence and now at least 1,818 sq km (702 sq miles) are contaminated - an area bigger than London - according to a report prepared for the conference by the Mine Action Review research group.

“It was done on an industrial scale. ISIS had production lines, they set serial numbers on the devices,” said Portia Stratton, Iraq Country Director for MAG, a British non-governmental organization working in northern Iraq, including the districts of Sinjar, Tel Afar and Tel Kaif and around Mosul.

“We find mine belts surrounding cities and villages and multiple rows of interlinked mine belts running across agricultural fields,” she told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference.

Homes in both cities and villages are also laid with landmines and IEDs and MAG wants to conduct demining inside Mosul, Iraq’s third-largest city with 2 million inhabitants, depending on funding, she added.



UN-backed Team Focusing on Human Rights in Palestinian Areas Announce Resignations

Chair of the Commission Navi Pillay delivers her statement of the report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, during the 56th session of the Human Rights Council, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, June 19, 2024. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP, File)
Chair of the Commission Navi Pillay delivers her statement of the report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, during the 56th session of the Human Rights Council, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, June 19, 2024. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP, File)
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UN-backed Team Focusing on Human Rights in Palestinian Areas Announce Resignations

Chair of the Commission Navi Pillay delivers her statement of the report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, during the 56th session of the Human Rights Council, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, June 19, 2024. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP, File)
Chair of the Commission Navi Pillay delivers her statement of the report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, during the 56th session of the Human Rights Council, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, June 19, 2024. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP, File)

A team of three independent experts working for the UN's top human rights body with a focus on Israel and Palestinian areas say they are resigning, citing personal reasons and a need for change, in the panel's first such group resignation.

The resignations, announced Monday by the UN-backed Human Rights Council that set up the team, come as violence continues in Palestinian areas with few signs of letup in the Israeli military campaign against Hamas and other militants behind the Oct. 7 attacks.

The Israeli government has repeatedly criticized the panel of experts, known as the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, and denied their repeated requests to travel to the region or otherwise cooperate with the team, The AP news reported.

Council spokesman Pascal Sim said the move marked the first joint resignations of Commission of Inquiry members since the council was founded in 2006. The team said in a statement that the resignations had “absolutely nothing to do with any external event or pressure," while also saying they provided a good opportunity to reconstitute the panel.

Navi Pillay, 83, a former UN human rights chief who has led the commission for the last four years, said in a letter to the council president that she was resigning effective Nov. 3 because of “age, medical issues and the weight of several other commitments.”

In an interview, Pillay rejected accusations from critics who accused her of antisemitism or turning a blind eye to the Hamas attacks. She recalled how she worked closely with some Jewish lawyers in the fight against apartheid in her native South Africa and was invited to Israel as the UN rights chief from 2008 to 2014.

"Name-calling is not affecting me in any way,” she said by phone. “We have striven to remain independent. That’s what we are. We’re an independent panel. We don’t take sides ... We look at the evidence and see the direction it’s taking us.”

“People who accuse us of being anti-Semitic ... they twist the facts, they invent facts, falsify facts. I would like to see them challenge the report: Which of the facts that we have set out are incorrect?” she said.

Her commission condemned the Oct. 7 attacks three days afterward in a news release that said at the time that reports "that armed groups from Gaza have gunned down hundreds of unarmed civilians are abhorrent and cannot be tolerated. Taking civilian hostages and using civilians as human shields are war crimes.”

She expressed regret that Israel didn't allow the commission access to Israel or Palestinian areas, saying "I feel that’s an injustice to Israeli Jews because we’re not taking on board their opinion or what they’re saying.”

Pillay said she had been recently diagnosed with low platelet count and her condition has restricted her ability to travel.

Her team said it wanted to give the rights council's president — currently Ambassador Jürg Lauber of Switzerland — the ability to pick new members.

Team member Chris Sidoti said Pillay's retirement marked “an appropriate time to re-constitute the commission.” The third member, Miloon Kothari, did not provide his reasons in a letter announcing his resignation effective 0ct. 31.

Neither the independent experts nor the council have any power over countries, but aim to spotlight rights abuses and collect information about suspected perpetrators that could be used by the International Criminal Court or other courts focusing on international justice.

The letters were sent to the council president last week but only became public Monday.

Last week, the US government announced sanctions against another independent expert mandated by the council, Francesca Albanese, who has also focused on Israel and the Palestinians. Albanese has accused Israel of genocide against the Palestinians, a claim Israel has denied.

Albanese said in an interview last week with The Associated Press that she was shocked by the US decision. She has not resigned.