{"id":18320,"date":"2021-07-19T06:25:56","date_gmt":"2021-07-19T06:25:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.projectmasam.com\/eng\/?p=18320"},"modified":"2021-07-19T06:41:21","modified_gmt":"2021-07-19T06:41:21","slug":"rainy-season-deepens-existing-landmine-threat-in-yemen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.projectmasam.com\/eng\/rainy-season-deepens-existing-landmine-threat-in-yemen\/","title":{"rendered":"Rainy season deepens existing landmine threat in Yemen"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Regardless of the rainy season and security issues linked to tribal clashes in Yemen’s West Coast region, Project Masam clearance teams are continuing to undertake mine clearance operations to the best of their ability by adapting to new threats.<\/p>\n

The weather in Yemen varies on geography. Yemen’s western highlands have two distinct rainy seasons – the\u00a0saif\u00a0<\/em>which runs between April and May and the\u00a0kharif<\/em>\u00a0which brings torrential rains and flooding from June to September.<\/p>\n

Landmine migration phenomena\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

During rainy season, demining teams and civilians alike face the issue of Mine Migration. A migrating landmine is a\u00a0mine\u00a0moved by nature from the original position it was laid in to another, without any human intervention.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cMine clearance teams are more vigilant due to landmines migrating caused by the water shifting the mines: this means that water can transport a mine from high ground (mountainous terrain for example) to low ground during floods (such as flooded rivers beds),\u201d\u00a0demining expert Training Officer Deon von Landsberg told Masam from Aden.<\/p>\n

Because landmines can be transported by a flooded river anywhere from several meters to dozens of\u00a0kilometres,\u00a0the clearance area can easily enlarge exponentially if landmines are washed down from existing and confirmed mined sites.<\/p>\n

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Recently, Masam Team 11, were tasked to do clearance where a camel had stepped on a mine in a river bed. The mines were found in very close proximity in a “collection” point in the river, clearly indicating that the mines had been washed down from their original point of being laid.<\/div>\n
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\u201cDuring rainy season, clearance teams have to verify all their clearance areas as well as access routes to the minefields for possible mine migration especially when the clearance operations are in low ground, such as valleys below mountainous areas close to rivers that can be flooded,\u201d\u00a0Von Landsberg added.<\/p>\n

Speaking from Aden, a Masam IED Threat Officer said: \u201cThe biggest danger is that previously cleared and landmine-free areas are now again contaminated, and therefore will need re-clearance. This is very time consuming as can be imagined. Flooding can cause marking systems to be washed away, remove all evidence of cleared areas, and all access routes to and from Dangerous Areas (DAs) will need to be re-cleared in order to ensure safe passage to and from mine sites.\u201d<\/p>\n

For deminers, this also means extending their time spent on site to ensure the threat is removed.<\/p>\n

Turning anti-tank mines into anti-personnel mines\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Yemen, there are tens of thousands – if not more \u2013 of\u00a0Houthi anti-vehicle\u00a0devices<\/a>\u00a0(AV, also known as anti-tank mines)\u00a0in the ground today.<\/p>\n

\"\"The longer they remain exposed to the elements, especially flooding, the more they will deteriorate and transition into anti-personnel (AP) threats. Whilst a\u00a0normal AV device requires an applied pressure\u00a0of more than 150kg (330lb)<\/strong>\u00a0in order to detonate, a deteriorated AV may\u00a0detonate under about 5kg to 50kg (11lb to 110lb) of pressure.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0IED Threat Officer\u00a0recalled an accident in which a Masam deminer in his fifties, which we will name A.A.K, was killed in Taiz Governorate on 7 April 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was in a Wadi [river] bed that A.A.K was killed because the AV devices there were periodically washed with flood water. Flood water had rapidly corroded the casing and turned a Houthi improvised AV device into an AP threat by destroying its structural integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the Incident Report,\u00a0A.A.K\u2019s\u00a0demining team had located three anti-tank mines. Having approached one of them, A.A.K was hit directly on the right leg, which was amputated by the blast, and the fragmentation effect drove metal fragments on his left leg and many places on his body.\u00a0A.A.K succumbed to his injuries.<\/p>\n

A Confirmed Hazardous Area, the site was immediately treated as a High-Risk Area due to the deterioration of the AV mines present in the ground. The teams were re-trained immediately\u00a0on this type of deteriorated AV threat after the accident.<\/p>\n

Masam adapts to the seasonal threat\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The\u00a0IED Threat Officer, who wishes not to be named, explained rainy season\u00a0affects freedom of movement of the teams. “Flash flooding can put certain minefields out-of-bounds and restricts our potential movement to the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Vehicles may get stuck in the mud, effectively delaying clearance operations as well as compounding security threats depending on the area in which the teams operate should they remain too long in exposed areas that still carry risks. Other threats include deminers slipping on wet ground and falling into uncleared areas, and\u00a0wet conditions impairing the vision of a deminer in the clearance lane.<\/p>\n

\u201cDeminers cannot do mine clearance when it rains, and they obviously must wait for the rain to stop and the ground conditions to dry out satisfactorily for them to commence safely with clearance operations,\u201d Von Landsberg added.<\/p>\n

King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSRelief) Health and Environmental Aid\u00a0Department Director Abdullah Saleh Al-Moallem\u00a0estimates up to two million landmines<\/a>\u00a0(AV and AP) have been planted by Houthi militias across Yemen.<\/p>\n

Since inception in mind-2018, Project Masam has cleared 263,428sqm of Yemeni liberated land, effectively\u00a0locating and destroying 263,428<\/a> life-threatening explosive items including 3,969 AP mines, 83,643 AT mines, 169,758 unexploded ordnance and 6,058 improvised explosive devices (IEDs) (as at 16 July 2021).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image source=”featured_image” img_size=”full” alignment=”right” css=”.vc_custom_1524156224953{margin-bottom: 25px !important;}”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1626676890308{padding-top: 20px !important;padding-right: 20px !important;padding-bottom: 20px !important;padding-left: 20px !important;background-color: #b5b5b5 !important;border-radius: 15px !important;}”] Regardless of the rainy season and security issues linked to tribal clashes in Yemen’s West Coast region, Project Masam clearance teams are continuing to undertake mine clearance operations to the best of their ability by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,1],"tags":[176,177,175,174,151,106,115,107,172,173,167,149,103,100,97,118,136,131,99,124,98,110,171,30,102,129,116,123,120,105,117,101,109,119,170,111,169,178,179,180,108,168],"class_list":["post-18320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-uncategorized","tag-aden","tag-aden-yemen","tag-anti-tank-mines","tag-anti-vehicle-mines","tag-anti-personnel-landmines","tag-civilians","tag-civilians-killed","tag-conflict","tag-deminers-killed","tag-demining-accidents","tag-environment","tag-houthi-landmines","tag-houthis","tag-human-rights","tag-humanitarian","tag-ieds","tag-inspirational-people","tag-internally-displaced-yemen","tag-landmines","tag-landmines-in-yemen","tag-mine-action","tag-mine-clearance","tag-mine-migration","tag-news","tag-project-masam","tag-refugees-yemen","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-total-mines-cleared","tag-training","tag-uxo","tag-yemac","tag-yemen","tag-yemen-crisis","tag-yemen-executive-mine-action-centre","tag-yemen-floods","tag-yemen-news","tag-yemen-rainy-season","tag-yemen-security","tag-yemen-tribal-clashes","tag-yemen-tribes","tag-yemen-war","tag-yemen-weather","category-18","category-1","description-off"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.projectmasam.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.projectmasam.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.projectmasam.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.projectmasam.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.projectmasam.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18320"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.projectmasam.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18334,"href":"https:\/\/www.projectmasam.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18320\/revisions\/18334"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.projectmasam.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.projectmasam.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.projectmasam.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.projectmasam.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}