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.



Israel Says Rockets Fired from Syria for the First Time Since Bashar Assad’s Fall 

An Israeli military vehicle is seen near the border between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Syria, May 4, 2025. (Reuters)
An Israeli military vehicle is seen near the border between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Syria, May 4, 2025. (Reuters)
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Israel Says Rockets Fired from Syria for the First Time Since Bashar Assad’s Fall 

An Israeli military vehicle is seen near the border between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Syria, May 4, 2025. (Reuters)
An Israeli military vehicle is seen near the border between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Syria, May 4, 2025. (Reuters)

The Israeli army said two rockets were fired from Syria into open areas in the Israel-occupied Golan Heights on Tuesday, marking the first time a strike has been launched toward Israel from Syrian territory since the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December.

Syrian state media reported that Israel shelled the western countryside of Syria’s Daraa province after the rocket launch. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, also reported Israeli airstrikes that caused “violent explosions” around the city of Quneitra and in the Daraa countryside.

A group calling itself the Mohammed Deif Brigades — named after a Hamas military leader killed by an Israeli strike in Gaza last year — claimed the attack in a post on Telegram. The group first surfaced on social media a few days before.

“Until now, it’s just a Telegram channel. It’s not known if it is a real group,” said Ahmed Aba Zeid, a Syrian researcher who has studied armed factions in southern Syria.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement that Israel considers “the Syrian president directly responsible for every threat and firing toward the State of Israel” and warned of a “full response” to come “as soon as possible.”

Israel has been suspicious of the former opposition fighters who formed the new Syrian government, led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, and has launched hundreds of airstrikes on Syria and seized a UN-patrolled buffer zone on Syrian territory since Assad’s fall.

Syria’s foreign ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run TV channel that it has “not yet verified the accuracy” of the reports of strikes launched from Syria toward Israel.

“We affirm that Syria has not and will not pose a threat to any party in the region,” the statement said. It condemned the Israeli shelling, which it said had resulted in “significant human and material losses.”

The US, which has warmed to al-Sharaa's government and recently moved to lift some sanctions previously imposed on Syria, has pushed for Syria to normalize relations with Israel.

In a recent interview with the Jewish Journal, al-Sharaa said he wants to see a return to a 1974 ceasefire agreement between the two countries but stopped short of proposing immediate normalization, saying that “peace must be earned through mutual respect, not fear.”