Myanmar leads world in landmine victims: Group

Landmines and unexploded munitions claimed more victims in Myanmar than in any other country last year, a monitor said on Wednesday, warning the true toll could be double or triple its estimate of 1,000 people killed or wounded.

Decades of sporadic conflict between the military and ethnic rebel groups have left the Southeast Asian country littered with deadly landmines and munitions.

But the military’s ouster of Aung San Suu Kyi’s government in 2021 has turbocharged conflict in the country and birthed dozens of newer “People’s Defence Forces” (PDFs) now battling to topple the military.

Anti-personnel mines and explosive remnants of war killed or wounded 1,003 people in Myanmar in 2023, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) said on Wednesday.

There were 933 landmine casualties in Syria, 651 in Afghanistan and 580 in Ukraine, the ICBL said in its latest Landmine Monitor report.

With conflict and other restrictions in Myanmar making ground surveys impossible, the true casualty figure was likely far higher than reported, said Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan of the ICBL.

“How many more? Double? Triple? Quite possibly. There’s no medical surveillance system in the country that can provide official data in any manner or form,” he told a press conference in Bangkok.

“No armed group in Myanmar, not the military, not any of the ethnic armed groups, not the PDFs have provided us with any data on the number of casualties they have.”

“And we know from anecdotal evidence that it’s massive.”

Myanmar is not a signatory to the United Nations (UN) convention that prohibits the use, stockpiling or development of anti-personnel mines.

The ICBL said there had been a “significant increase” of anti-personnel mines use by the military in recent years, including around infrastructure like mobile phone towers and energy pipelines.

Such infrastructure is often targeted by opponents of the military.

Myanmar’s military has been repeatedly accused of atrocities and war crimes during decades of internal conflict.

The ICBL said it had seen evidence of junta troops forcing civilians to walk in front of its units to “clear” mine-affected areas.

It said it had reviewed photos that indicated supplies of anti-personnel mines manufactured by Myanmar were captured by the military’s opponents every month between January 2022 and September 2024, “in virtually every part of the country.”

More than three million people have been displaced in Myanmar by the post-coup conflict, according to the UN.

All sides in the fighting were using landmines “indiscriminately,” the UN children’s agency said in April.

Rebel groups have said they also lay mines in some areas under their control.

The ICBL said at least 5,757 people had been casualties of landmines and explosive remnants of war across the world last year, 1,983 of whom were killed.

Civilians made up 84 percent of all recorded casualties, it said.

Last year’s figures are considerably higher than 2022, when the ICBL recorded at least 4,710 casualties including 1,661 fatalities.

The ICBL also slammed a “terrible” decision by the United States to provide Ukraine with antipersonnel landmines to shore up its defences against Russian forces.

The group “condemns this terrible decision by the US,” it said in a statement.

“The US Campaign to Ban Landmines and all the ICBL will be working to get the US to reverse it.”

Ukraine “must clearly state they cannot and will not accept these weapons,” it said.

The US decision comes as President Joe Biden works to boost Ukraine’s war effort in the final two months of his administration, before Ukraine aid critic Donald Trump takes power in January.

Late Tuesday, a US official said Washington has sought commitments from Ukraine to use the mines in its own territory and only in areas that are not populated in order to decrease the risk they pose to civilians.

The mines are known as being “non-persistent” because they go inert after a set period of time, when their battery power runs out.

Agence France-Presse