Ousama Algosaibi, the Managing Director of Project Masam, has said that Yemen is facing a major crisis regarding the issue of landmines, which requires better engagement and more thorough action by the international community, adding that there are no signs indicating the end of the landmine threat in the near future.
The Managing Director referred to the magnitude of the humanitarian catastrophe Yemen is witnessing with the insistence of the Houthi militia on targeting civilians by planting landmines of all forms and sizes in various areas, without taking into account the rules of customary international humanitarian law and the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. with regards to the use of landmines.
“Project Masam has cleared more than 400,000 landmines, IEDs [improvised explosive devices], and UXO [unexploded ordnance], including both anti-personnel and anti-tank mines, to be added to the large number of UXO and the ever larger number of IEDs”, Algosaibi was quoted as saying by Almanatq newspaper.
“Project Masam has so far removed more than 7,800 IEDs in Yemen including rock mines – a figure that has never been recorded elsewhere in the world. That’s really a huge number,” he added.
Mine Crimes
In the article, Algosaibi described several aspects of what he considers to be mine crimes, and the extensive plantation of landmines in Yemen.
“They [the Houthis] make IEDs such as rock mines, and they also made mines that were originally booby traps, so it can be said that they are not only attacking civilians, but they are targeting the teams who will come and actually try to remove these mines.
“They are attacking teams working on the ground and they are the target now. They have made jumping mines [also known as bounding mines], which are not only intended to inflict damage but go beyond that to kill as many people as possible.”
He continued: “Today, it can be said that the anti-personnel mines made by the Houthis in Yemen have become lethal, aiming not only to harm but to kill. With regards to the jumping mines that we found on the West Coast, I can confirm these are very deadly weapons as the mine jumps at an angle of 360 degrees, and this means that anyone in the surrounding area will inevitably be killed.”
Training and equipping Yemeni teams
Regarding Project Masam’s achievements on the ground, Algosaibi said, “We have retrained and equipped the Yemeni teams of the National Mine Action Program [YEMAC] hat have been cooperating with us, and we are basically working to guide and supervise these teams because, in the long term, Yemenis are the ones who will remain in their country to continue working in it.”
“From day one, Project Masam has taken it upon itself to actually work in high-impact and vital areas, and we have been interested in returning displaced people to their villages, farmers to their farms, students to their schools, facilitating access to water supplies, and demining desert roads and pastures used by civilians”, he added.
Asked how long he believes the landmine crisis would last in Yemen, Algosaibi said: “if we have enough funding, teams, and information, I think it will take another 10 years.”
In July 2023, the project cleared 2,815 landmines – including 441 anti-tank/vehicle mines -, IEDs and UXO within the framework of its humanitarian landmine clearance operations. During the period. demining teams cleared 748,277 square metres of Yemeni land. It also destroyed 4,378 mines, IEDs and UXO during several bulk demolition operations across the country.
Since the start of the project in mid-2018, teams have cleared 408.633 explosive threats, effectively clearing a total of 48,233,366 square metres.
