Myanmar topped world for landmine casualties in 2023: report

By Admin 22 Nov 2024

DMG Newsroom
22 November 2024, Sittwe

Myanmar had the highest number of casualties from landmines and unexploded munitions worldwide in 2023, according to a November 20 report by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL).

The report recorded at least 5,757 people killed or wounded by landmines and explosive remnants of war worldwide in 2023. Landmines and explosive remnants of war killed 1,983 people worldwide and injured 3,663, with the survival status unknown for 111 of the casualties.

In 2023, Myanmar recorded the highest number of annual casualties (1,003) for the first time. There were 933 landmine casualties in Syria, 651 in Afghanistan and 580 in Ukraine, the ICBL said in its latest Landmine Monitor report.

Civilians continued to bear the brunt of the harm caused by these weapons, with 84% of recorded casualties being civilians, where the status was known. Children accounted for more than one-third of all civilian casualties.

“The report documents a shocking number of civilian deaths, including children, caused by landmines,” said ICBL Director Tamar Gabelnick.

In Myanmar, the regime has often placed landmines in areas where fighting has broken out, as well as in areas where people move around and work in farmlands, posing many challenges to the livelihoods of local people.

“Rural people like us who make a living by collecting firewood and bamboo shoots no longer dare to go into the forest when they encounter landmines. We are facing livelihood hardships,” said Ma Khaing Kyaw, a local woman from Hnamadar Village in Chin State’s Paletwa Township who was disabled after stepping on a landmine.

The families of those killed by landmines and those disabled are facing financial difficulties and typically need both material and psychological support.

“Myanmar Armed Forces continued their use of antipersonnel mines in 2023 and into 2024, as they have done every year since the first Landmine Monitor report was published in 1999,” said the latest ICBL report, which noted that non-state armed groups in Myanmar also used antipersonnel mines during the reporting period.