Lady Di in the mined area. The British Princess traveled to Angola in January 1997 at the invitation of the Red Cross and now trudged through a minefield in protective gear, along where experts had cleared a strip of explosive devices. Diana was determined to use her popularity for a good cause: the ban on anti-personnel mines, the perfidious weapons that claim thousands of victims every year, most of them civilians.
The pictures went around the world and seemed to have an impact. Diana herself died a few months later in a car accident in Paris; she did not live to see the success of the anti-mine campaign: The Ottawa Agreement of 1999 is considered an important milestone in international humanitarian law. It prohibits states from producing, stockpiling or distributing anti-personnel landmines and requires members to help victims. More than 160 countries have joined the treaty. However, some large countries refuse to sign: These include India and Pakistan, Russia, China and the USA.
The Ottawa Convention shows what a committed community of states can do legally and politically to curb senseless suffering. On the other hand, anti-personnel landmines are still being used on various fronts – and in increasing numbers recently. The explosives kill and maim people indiscriminately, even decades after the end of a war. The victims are often children.
Russia has also used landmines in Ukraine
In 2023, 5,757 people died from landmines or other explosive remains, according to the report by the “International Campaign to Ban Landmines” network. The number of victims was particularly high in Myanmar, with more than 1,000 people dying there alone. The regimes in Iran and North Korea continue to secure their borders with mines, but many non-state groups also planted the explosive devices in 2023 and 2024, in the Sahel, Colombia, India, Pakistan and Gaza.
Russia's role in this issue is also disturbing. The war of aggression against Ukraine has “led to an unprecedented situation,” says the latest mine report. Russia has not signed the Mine Ban Treaty and is now using the weapon in large quantities against Ukraine, a country that, unlike Moscow, has agreed to the Ottawa Agreement. Kiev is also using mines in this forced war, which means the country is in breach of contract, but is fighting for nothing less than its existence.
The Russian army's advances have set in motion a dynamic that has horrified representatives of the anti-mine campaigns: at the end of November, the US government of Joe Biden drew sharp criticism when it became known that Washington wanted to supply Ukraine with new anti-personnel mines. They are intended to slow the advance of Russian troops.
Such a step marks “a dramatic break with historical US policy,” criticizes the organization Handicap International (HI), which supports mine victims worldwide. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin instead justified the move with the needs of the Ukrainians and changing tactics by the Russian military, which was now advancing on foot in smaller formations, ahead of its own tanks. The American army needed means to slow such advances, Austin made clear.
Although the United States has never joined the Mine Ban Treaty, it has not used or exported anti-personnel mines since the early 1990s, according to the HI organization. Washington also had millions of stored mines destroyed over the years.
Angola was supposed to be mine-free in 2014 – it still isn't
The plight of Ukrainians with the Russian advance is obvious. But mining experts point out what a heavy burden future generations will have to bear if their countries are massively contaminated by mines. Apparently the USA also wants to address this problem by detonating the newer explosive devices using a battery – unlike conventional mines. If this is in use, the explosive device should no longer be able to explode.
Skepticism about incalculable risks remains. And the experiences with mines that have not been cleared in other countries are devastating. Take Angola, for example, which Lady Di once put in the spotlight: The African state is one of the countries that suffer most from the explosive legacy. There are no exact death toll numbers there. But a survey, which is already ten years old, indicates the extent of the danger: According to this, 88,000 Angolans were living with mutilations caused by mines at the time.
The difficulty of eradicating the legacy of a 27-year-long Cold War-era conflict is demonstrated by the repeated delays in clearing explosive devices, often due to a lack of financial resources. According to the original plans, Angola was supposed to be free of mines by 2013. The target has now been pushed back to 2028. And so many Angolans still live with the daily fear that death is somewhere beneath the red earth.
