Since 2015, the Houthi militias have adopted the approach of planting landmines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) intensively and indiscriminately in all areas and villages they seized all over Yemen. Schools were one of the places deliberately targeted by the Houthi militias – they turned them into military barracks or littered them with landmines and…
The head of Jabal Habashi district, west of Taiz Governorate in Yemen’s southwest has warned that the majority of parents in his area had stopped sending their children to school because of the presence of landmines near or in these schools. On the other hand, some parents had no other choice but to send their…
The director of Yemen’s National Mine Action Programme has said that Project Masam demining teams have destroyed 450 anti-tank mines in the country’s southeast. Amin Al-Aqili, director of the Yemen Executive Mine Action Center (YEMAC), confirmed the landmines were removed from the west of Shabwah Governorate, which includes each of Usaylan, Bayhan, and Ain districts. Shabwah,…
Project Masam has announced its has located and destroyed 371,952 explosive devices in Yemeni liberated areas. These include 5,704 anti-personnel mines, 134,212 anti-tank mines, 7,571 improvised explosive devices and 224,465 unexploded ordnance neutralised over 40,473,438sqm of land since mid-2018. Since the conflict between Yemen’s pro-government forces and Houthi militias escalated in 2014, liberated strategic areas have been left littered with Houthi anti-personnel mines and anti-tank mines, along with unexploded remnants…
Leader of Masam’s Team 15, Engineer Sultan Al-Qubei has confirmed the successful completion of surveying and clearing of landmines in the Shaqt Al-Alqa desert area in Yemen’s Shabwah governorate. The demining team has been operating for two months in this vital area which links the Hareb, Beihan and Usaylan districts. Al-Qubei pointed out that most…
A villager has described how civilians have experienced successive disasters due to the presence of landmines in his area in Yemen’s western Mawza district. Muhammad Saleh Maraani, who is from Al-Safalia village, told Project Masam villagers lost their livelihoods and access to drinking water. The villager told how social life was brought to a standstill,…
Between Autumn 2021 and Spring 2022, humanitarian landmine clearance project Masam’s deminers witnessed a rise in the targeting of demining activities. In short, Yemen’s Houthi militia — who are designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation by the internationally-recognised Yemeni government-in-exile and the United Nations — were reportedly fitting landmines with something called anti-handling mechanisms that means that…
The Yemeni Minister of Water and Environment Tawfiq Al-Sharjabi has described how Project Masam has contributed to mitigate the effects and repercussions of humanitarian and environmental disasters caused by Houthi landmines in Yemen. In cooperation with the Yemeni government, Masam succeeded in clearing large quantities of landmines in heavily contaminated areas – notably the West…
Local villagers in Yemen’s Usaylan district have described how life returned to normal after Project Masam cleared their areas of landmines. Hussein Saleh Mubarak, a resident of Usaylan district, expressed his happiness and thanked Project Masam, which allowed the residents of his area to safely restore the water wells designated for drinking and agriculture after…
Project Masam has destroyed hundreds of anti-tank mines in the west of Yemen’s Shabwah province. Leader of Team 14, Engineer Muhammad Qamata, confirmed that the engineering teams removed 462 landmines in the past weeks from the districts of Behan, Usaylan and Ain in Shabwah province and Hareb district, south of Marib province. Qamata explained…
