GENEVA: New land mine use in Myanmar, Ukraine and other conflicts coupled with funding cuts for clearance saw casualty numbers surge in 2024, a monitor said Monday, warning the international ban faced “unprecedented challenges.”
According to the Landmine Monitor, 6,279 people were wounded or killed by land mines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) across 52 countries and areas last year.
Civilians — nearly half of them children — made up 90 percent of global casualties, it said.
The number of overall casualties, which included 1,945 people killed, was nearly 500 more than a year earlier and marked the highest annual figure since 2020.
The report “reveals a stark reality: civilians are bearing the consequences, as efforts to clear mined areas face waning global donor support for essential humanitarian activities,” the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) cautioned in a statement.
The organization also decried “unprecedented challenges” to the long-standing international ban on land mines after five NATO countries announced in March they would quit the treaty amid fears over “Russian aggression.”
“The norms of the Mine Ban Treaty are under direct threat as Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland are in the process of withdrawing under the treaty’s Article 20,” ICBL said.
It also highlighted Ukraine’s attempt to “suspend” its compliance due to the conflict raging since Russia began its full-scale invasion nearly four years ago, stressing that such an action was “not permitted under the treaty.”
‘Dangerous erosion’
“These developments, together with continued use and production, mark a dangerous erosion of the global norm that has saved countless lives since 1999,” when the treaty took effect, it said.
“Turning back is not an option,” ICBL chief Tamar Gabelnick insisted in the statement.
“We have come too far, and the human cost is simply too high.”
The increase in casualty numbers last year was largely due to mines used in conflict-hit countries outside the treaty ban like Myanmar, Syria and Russia, and by treaty party Ukraine, Monday’s report said.
It found that Russia had used antipersonnel mines “extensively” in Ukraine since February 2022.
There were meanwhile “increasing indications of antipersonnel mine use by Ukraine,” the report said, adding, though, that “the scale of this use is unclear.”
What was not unclear were the consequences in the country, with Ukraine recording nearly 300 casualties from the devices last year.
Civil war-wracked Myanmar meanwhile recorded most land mine casualties globally in 2024 for the second consecutive year, recording 2,029 people hurt or killed, the report found.
In second place, with 1,015 casualties was Syria, where civilians have faced high exposure to land mines and ERW as they return home after the toppling of longtime ruler Bashar Assad last December ended nearly 14 years of brutal civil war, it said.
Funding crisis
At a global level, the Landmine Monitor noted that the total area cleared of mines had declined in 2024 compared with previous years, “reflecting reduced donor funding and growing insecurity in affected regions.”
The report also highlighted that donor contributions for victim assistance, which represents only five percent of all mine action funding, fell by almost a quarter in 2024.
Those challenges have been further compounded this year by a dramatic international aid funding crisis.
Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House at the start of the year, the United States, traditionally the world’s top donor, has slashed foreign aid.
Although the United States does not figure among the 166 signatories of the mine ban treaty, it had been the single biggest national funder of mine action.