© Gwenn Dubourthoumieu/UNMACC, April 2011Clearance operations in the DR Congo.

Summary of Progress

As of August 2011, 72 states including 44 States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty, as well as seven areas not generally recognized as states, were confirmed or suspected to be mine-affected. In June 2011, Nigeria reported that it had completed its clearance obligations under the treaty, making it the 18th State Party to do so.^[1] In December 2010, Gambia reported that it no longer had mined areas on its territory. In June 2010, Nicaragua declared completion of its Article 5 clearance obligations.^[2] In addition, in June 2011 it was reported that Nepal, a state not party, had cleared all mined areas from its territory.

In 2010, mine action programs cleared at least 200km² of mined areas,^[3] a small increase on the previous highest total recorded by the Monitor. A further 460km² of battle areas^[4] was cleared in 2010 including more than 18.5km² of cluster munition contaminated areas.^[5] In 2009, mine action programs cleared at least 198km² of mined areas and 359km² of battle areas, including 38km² of cluster munition contaminated areas.

Mine-Affected States and Other Areas

As of August 2011, 72 states, as well as seven other areas, were confirmed or suspected to be mine-affected, as set out in the table below.^[6]

Affected states not party

A total of 26 states not party to the Mine Ban Treaty are believed to be mine affected: Armenia, Azerbaijan, China,^[7] Cuba, Egypt, Georgia, India, Iran, Israel, Kyrgyzstan, Lao PDR, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Myanmar, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Russia, Somalia, South Korea, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Syria, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. In June 2011, the UN announced that Nepal had cleared its last known mined area.^[8]

Mine-affected states and other areas as of August 2011

Africa	Americas	Asia-Pacific	Europe and CIS	Middle East and North Africa
Angola Burundi Chad Congo, Republic of the Djibouti Congo Democratic Republic of the (DRC) Eritrea Ethiopia Guinea-Bissau Mauritania Mali Mozambique Namibia Niger Senegal Somalia South Sudan Sudan Uganda Zimbabwe Somaliland	Argentina** Chile Colombia Cuba Ecuador Peru Venezuela	Afghanistan Bhutan Cambodia China India Korea, North Korea, South Lao PDR Myanmar Palau Pakistan Philippines Sri Lanka Thailand Vietnam Taiwan	Armenia Azerbaijan Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) Croatia Cyprus Denmark Georgia Germany Greece Kyrgyzstan Moldova Montenegro Russia Serbia Tajikistan Turkey United Kingdom(UK)** Uzbekistan Abkhazia Nagorno-Karabakh Kosovo	Algeria Egypt Iran Iraq Israel Jordan Lebanon Libya Morocco Oman Syria Yemen Palestine Western Sahara
20 states and 1 area	7 states	15 states and 1 area	18 states and 3 areas	12 states and 2 areas

Note: Other areas are indicated by italics. States not party to the Mine Ban Treaty are indicated in bold. States with a residual mine problem not in known mined areas are not included, such as Belarus, Finland, Honduras, Kuwait, Poland, and Ukraine, and, since its declaration of compliance with Article 5, Tunisia. Both Argentina and the UK claim sovereignty over the Falkland Islands/Malvinas, which are mine-affected, and so both are included in the list. Djibouti and Namibia have completed major mine clearance operations, but contamination is still suspected so remain on the list.
** Argentina and the UK both claim sovereignty over the Falkland Islands/Malvinas, which still contain mined areas.

Affected states with mine contamination of more than 100km²

State

Afghanistan

Angola

BiH

Cambodia

Chad

Croatia

Iran

Iraq

Morocco

Sri Lanka

Thailand

Turkey

Zimbabwe

Mine-affected "other areas"

Seven other areas not internationally recognized as states are also mine-affected: Abkhazia, Kosovo, Nagorno-Karabakh, Palestine, Somaliland, Taiwan, and Western Sahara. Abkhazia was expected to be cleared of all known mined areas before the end of 2011, while Taiwan has set a deadline of 2013 for completion of mine clearance operations.

Extent of contamination

The Monitor does not publish a global table of the estimated size of mine contamination by state because it believes that many of the estimates cited by states are far higher than the true extent of contamination. Instead, an order of magnitude for contamination as of August 2011 is given in the table below, which list states with very heavy contamination (more than 100km²).

Mine Clearance in 2010

There are continuing problems in discerning true mine clearance from battle area clearance (BAC) or land release by survey, in large part due to poor quality of reporting.^[9] However, the Monitor believes at least 200km² of mined areas were cleared by 45 mine action programs in 2010 (compared with 198km² in 2009, the previous record), with the destruction of more than 388,000 antipersonnel mines and over 27,000 antivehicle mines. This includes more than 11,000 antipersonnel mines and 830 antivehicle mines destroyed during BAC and roving explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) operations. The global clearance figure is conservative and understates the extent of clearance.^[10] The largest total clearance of mined areas was by mine action programs in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Croatia, Iraq, and Sri Lanka, which together accounted for more than 80% of recorded clearance.^[11]

Mine clearance in select states and other areas in 2010

Country/area	Area cleared in 2010 (km2)	Area cleared in 2009 (km2)
Afghanistan	64.76	52.29
Cambodia	50.99	44.73*
Croatia	31.81	37.89
Sri Lanka	13.22**	17.78
Iraq	10.06	9.90
Sudan	5.82	5.65
Nagorno-Karabakh	5.31	5.95
Angola	4.00	3.75***
Mozambique	3.52	2.63

Note: Other areas are indicated by italics.

* Very large area clearance reported for the army is not included in these totals as it has not been independently verified and it is not known how much of the reported clearance is either BAC or the result of release by technical survey or cancellation of suspected hazardous areas (SHAs).
** In August 2011, concerns were expressed about whether some of the clearance in Sri Lanka has met national and international mine action standards. For this reason, although the figure reported here is unchanged, a more conservative figure for total clearance worldwide has been employed.
*** Major area clearance reported for the Angolan National Demining Institute (Instituto Nacional de Desminagem) was not included as it is not known how much of the reported clearance was either BAC or the result of release by technical survey or cancellation of SHAs.

Of the mined area cleared in 2010, almost half was cleared by national NGO mine action operators (especially in Afghanistan and Cambodia), with a further quarter cleared by international NGO mine action operators.

Operators, however, remain at risk of attacks and abductions in some areas where non-state armed groups (NSAGs) operate, in particular in Afghanistan. The Mine Action Coordination Center for Afghanistan (MACCA) reported 11 cases of abductions in 2010, but in all cases the personnel seized were released.^[12] In one of these incidents 16 community-based deminers working for Organization for Mine Clearance and Afghan Rehabilitation (OMAR) were abducted in eastern Nangahar province in December 2010. Nine deminers were freed within hours and the remaining seven two days later. Two vehicles and all the team’s equipment were burnt.^[13]

MACCA observed that despite a 40% jump in the number of people working in mine action to 14,000, which made it one of the biggest UN-funded programs in the country, it suffered only 59 of 59,000 reported security incidents.^[14] Of the 59 incidents, however, 21 involved death or injury, including 10 people killed and 20 injured by improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and three people killed and eight injured in attacks.^[15] HALO Trust reported two attacks in 2010 resulting in one fatality and the forced retirement of another worker. Its country program manager was abducted in Kabul in February 2011 and held for 27 days.^[16] The Demining Agency for Afghanistan (DAFA) and its community-based deminers suffered the worst setback, reporting eight people killed and eight injured in an IED attack in 2010.^[17] In July 2011, DAFA suffered another attack in western Farah province when 20 deminers were abducted and four of them killed.^[18]

NSAGs have been regularly encouraged to cooperate with mine action activities. The only group to do so in the reporting period was the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC), whose April 2011 communiqué, in addition to a ban on use pledged to “destroy all landmines in their possession” and to “cooperate in the provision of mine clearance, risk education, and victim assistance.” Members of the NTC’s forces were subsequently involved in ad hoc clearance of some mines in conflict areas, removing hundreds of minimum-metal antipersonnel mines.^[19] HAWPAR, an apparatus created by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan, PKK) in Turkey reported clearing 2,000 mines in Sidiqan in northern Iraq. HAWPAR pursues clearance according to an annual workplan based on requests from communities or HAWPAR’s assessment of the threat of dangerous areas near communities it identifies.^[20]

Battle Area Clearance in 2010

In 2010, at least 460km² of battle area was reportedly cleared, destroying in the process more than 1.2 million items of UXO and almost 3,000 items of AXO.^[21]

BAC reported by major clearance programs in 2010

Country	BAC in 2010 (km2)
Afghanistan	105.3
Cambodia	21.3
Lao PDR	35.0
Sri Lanka	255.9

A further 180,000 items of UXO were destroyed during mine clearance operations while more than 36,000 were destroyed during roving and other EOD. In addition, at least 18.5km² of cluster munition contaminated area was cleared, destroying in the process almost 60,000 unexploded submunitions. A total of 359km² of battle areas were cleared in 2009, including 38km² of cluster munition contaminated areas.

Article 5 Obligations

States Parties with outstanding Article 5 obligations

Forty-four States Parties were confirmed or suspected to be affected by antipersonnel mines as of August 2011, as set out in the table below.

Six of these States Parties have not formally declared themselves to have, or still have, Article 5 obligations but the Monitor believes they may be mine-affected, and thus their completion of their Article 5 obligations may be in doubt: Djibouti,^[22] Greece (see below), Montenegro (see below), Namibia,^[23] Moldova,^[24] and the Philippines.^[25]

At the June 2011 intersessional Standing Committee meetings, Germany informed States Parties for the first time that it had discovered a suspected mined area at a former Soviet military training range at Wittstock in Brandenburg. Its Article 5 deadline expired in 2009. Also at the June 2011 meetings, Bhutan reiterated that it had two mined areas on its territory that had not yet been cleared.

Palau submitted an Article 7 report in 2011 (for calendar year 2010) in which it declared for the first time that it had mined areas containing antipersonnel mines on its territory. These are mines remaining from World War II, although based on a clearance operator’s report contamination may be only from abandoned stockpiles rather than emplaced mines.

The precise extent to which the Republic of the Congo, whose Article 5 deadline expired on 1 November 2011, is mine-contaminated remains unclear. At the June 2011 Standing Committee meetings, it announced plans to conduct a survey of the suspected region (the southwest of the country, close to the border with Angola) by February 2012.^[26] As of the end of August 2011, however, no extension request had yet been submitted.

The Monitor does not list Gambia, which declared at the Tenth Meeting of States Parties in December 2010 that it no longer has areas containing antipersonnel mines in areas under its jurisdiction or control.^[27] In June 2011, Nigeria announced that it had cleared all known mined areas from its territory. It pledged to make a detailed, formal declaration of completion to the Eleventh Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty.^[28] In May 2009, Nigeria had reported a possible mine threat left over from the Biafra conflict in the 1960s to the Standing Committee meetings.^[29] However, the list maintained by the Implementation Support Unit (ISU) of affected States Parties with outstanding Article 5 obligations continued to include both Nigeria and Gambia as of 1 September 2011.^[30]

The Monitor does not list Mali or Niger as having outstanding Article 5 clearance obligations since both are believed to be contaminated by antivehicle mines only.^[31] It has not yet listed Hungary, as press reports of possible mine contamination inside Hungary along its border with Croatia have not yet been confirmed.^[32] A request by the ICBL for clarification from Hungary had not yet received a response as of 14 September 2011.

A total of 18 States Parties have reported completion of their respective Article 5 obligations. However, serious concern remained about Greece’s status as of 1 September 2011. Greece has an area on the island of Rhodes that is marked as being mined. In June 2011, at the Standing Committee meetings, Greece stated that it had checked the area numerous times since clearance was originally conducted (in 1987), most recently in May 2011, as not all the mines had been accounted for, and a further examination of the area was planned for September 2011.

States Parties reporting completion of Mine Ban Treaty clearance obligations

* Date of completion of demining program (prior to entry into force of the Mine Ban Treaty).

State Parties and Article 5 deadline extensions

Significant challenges remain in implementing the obligation upon all affected States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty to clear all antipersonnel mines from their territory or on areas they control. In accordance with Article 5, states are required to clear all antipersonnel mines from mined areas on territory under their jurisdiction or control as soon as possible, but not later than 10 years after becoming party to the treaty. The first clearance deadlines expired on 1 March 2009, but 15 States Parties with 2009 deadlines failed to meet them and were granted extensions by the Ninth Meeting of States Parties.^[33] In 2009, a further three States Parties with 2010 deadlines (Argentina, Cambodia, and Tajikistan) and one with a 2009 deadline that had already expired (Uganda) formally requested and were granted extensions by the Second Review Conference. The extension periods ranged from three to 10 years.^[34] In 2010, Colombia, Guinea-Bissau, and Mauritania all applied for extensions ranging from two months to 10 years while Chad, Denmark, and Zimbabwe applied for second extensions, ranging from 18 months to three years. All the extension periods sought were granted by the Tenth Meeting of States Parties.

Thus, of the 44 States Parties that may have outstanding mine clearance obligations under the treaty, 22 were already taking advantage of a first or second Article 5 deadline extension period as of 1 September 2011. In addition, four more States Parties have submitted requests to be considered by the Eleventh Meeting of States Parties in Cambodia in November–December 2011: Algeria, Chile, DRC, and Eritrea. The periods sought ranged from 26 months to eight years. Extension requests were also expected in 2011 from the Republic of the Congo^[35] (whose deadline will already have expired by the time the Eleventh Meeting of States Parties has the opportunity to decide whether or not to grant an extension, thereby putting it in violation of the treaty) and possibly also Germany, a State Party whose deadline expired in 2009, but which in 2011 reported suspected antipersonnel mine contamination for the first time.

The ICBL urges the States Parties that receive extensions to fully implement Action Point 13 of the Cartagena Action Plan adopted by the Second Review Conference, which calls on them to work towards rapid implementation of Article 5 “in accordance with the commitments made in their extension requests and the decisions taken on their requests,” as well as to report regularly on such progress. The ICBL has consistently urged all States Parties that have received an extension to keep the time planned for completion under regular review with an aim to finishing as soon as possible, and called on the international community to support their efforts by providing the necessary financial, technical, and other support in a timely manner.

Progress in States Parties granted extensions in 2008, 2009 and 2010

Many of the States Parties granted extensions to their Article 5 deadlines have since made disappointing progress (see table below). Of the States Parties granted an extension, only Nicaragua has so far declared that it has completed its Article 5 obligations.^[36] Of the remaining States Parties granted extensions in 2009, only two (Mozambique and Venezuela) appeared likely to complete their Article 5 obligations in accordance with their first extended deadline.

As noted above, Chad, Denmark, and Zimbabwe had all sought relatively short extension periods in order to conduct necessary survey activities with the understanding that they would seek a second extension to complete their Article 5 obligations. Of these three states, however, only Denmark was expected to complete clearance by the expiry of its second extension request. Indeed, neither Chad nor Zimbabwe was able to conduct the respective surveys of contamination during the initial extension periods and sought second extensions for the same purpose as the first extensions. There were even concerns as to whether they would complete nationwide surveys of contamination in these second extension periods.

Also of great concern is the UK, which was one of only two States Parties that was known to be contaminated (the other being Venezuela), and which did not initiate formal clearance operations during the original Article 5 deadline. The UK released four mined areas in December 2009–June 2010, but did not conduct any further clearance in 2010 and was planning to release part or all of only two SHAs only by survey in 2011–2012, leaving 111 mined areas to clear or otherwise release in less than seven years. After prolonged delays, Venezuela, which has a small area of mine contamination, finally initiated clearance operations in 2010 and appeared on track to complete clearance on or before its extended deadline.

Of the four States Parties granted an extension in 2009, only Tajikistan appeared on track to complete its obligations in time.^[37] Of the three States Parties granted initial extensions to their Article 5 deadlines in 2010, both Guinea-Bissau and Mauritania appeared to be on track, while the status of Colombia, given the ongoing armed conflict, was unclear.

An overview of the status of Article 5 deadline extensions

Argentina

At the Second Review Conference Argentina said it was unable to meet its Article 5 obligations because it did not have access to the Malvinas due to the “illegal occupation” by the UK. Argentina said for this reason it had no other choice than to request an extension to its clearance deadline.^[38]

BiH

BiH’s Mine Action Strategy 2009–2019 was presented as the blueprint for fulfilling its Article 5 obligations, but it has failed to achieve the strategy’s targets every year since it started. The strategy projected release of 30km² a year through clearance and technical survey, two-and-a-half times more than its 2010 achievement.^[39] The Bosnia and Herzegovina Mine Action Centre (BHMAC) continues to assert that BiH could achieve its target if it received adequate external financing.^[40] In June 2011, at the Standing Committee meetings, BiH repeated its view that “reduction of the remaining mine suspected area planned for the period 2011–2019 will largely depend on allocated local and donor funds.”^[41]

Cambodia

In Cambodia, the extent of clearance that will be needed to fulfill its Article 5 obligations will not be known before completion of the baseline survey (BLS), which is scheduled to occur by the end of 2012. Results from survey of the first 23 of the 122 districts due to be covered by the BLS identified 714.8km² of mine and ERW contamination. The amount of land in these districts identified as contaminated with either only antipersonnel mines or a mixture of antipersonnel and antivehicle mines amounted to 643km². This did not include some areas of reported contamination on the border with Thailand that were not surveyed for security reasons. With the results of the BLS in 99 districts still to come, Cambodia’s extension request estimate of antipersonnel mine contamination (648.8km²) is therefore expected to rise.^[42]

In the meantime, humanitarian demining operators in Cambodia were forced to reduce capacity because of funding shortfalls, and clearance rates have suffered as a result. In 2010, the first year of implementing its extension request, Cambodia continued to report increased land release but this included greater amounts of BAC. Mined area clearance by humanitarian deminers (29.69km²) was significantly below the Article 5 extension request target for the year of 39.4km². Cambodia could be said to have achieved the target only if the unverified clearance results reported by the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (27.86km²) are included.^[43]

At the Tenth Meeting of States Parties, Cambodia warned that “without an increase in the current level of funding Cambodia is unlikely to mobilize resources required for 2010 and even less likely to obtain the 38% increase that has been foreseen to complete Article 5 obligations.”^[44]

Chad

At the June 2010 intersessional Standing Committee meetings, Chad announced that it would be submitting a second, short Article 5 deadline extension request to enable the survey for which it had been granted the first extension period to be finally conducted.^[45] The ICBL stated its deep disappointment that the UN’s internal processes in managing allocated funds had prevented the survey from being conducted during Chad’s first extension request, as had been planned.^[46] A second extension request was submitted on 20 September 2010, seeking an additional three years to conduct the survey. In granting the request, the Tenth Meeting of States Parties noted that, “it would appear that Chad does not possess much more knowledge now than it did in 2008 to develop a plan to meet its Article 5 obligations.”^[47]

Although survey activities had progressed through June 2011, it is regrettable that no concrete plans have been made to survey Tibesti, and that the first phase of the survey of other areas has ended in June 2011 without completing survey of two regions and without having a clear date for resumption of survey activities. Demining operations started in August 2000, but stopped at the end of December 2005 due to lack of funding. There was subsequently only intermittent clearance of mined areas until Mines Advisory Group (MAG) returned to Chad in 2010.

Colombia

On 30 March 2010, Colombia submitted a request for a 10-year extension to its Article 5 deadline of 1 March 2011, and then on 5 August 2011 submitted a revised request. The major differences between the original and the revised extension request were the decrease in the predicted number of NGO demining teams from 85 to 49 in 2014–2020, while required funds for the same period decreased by almost US$150 million. The operational plan and the assets and funding needed in 2011–2013 remained at 17 NGO teams and $25 million. During this period the government of Colombia planned to contribute $21 million for 14 demining platoons.^[48]

The extension request predicts that all mined areas will be released by 2020, even though “it is not possible to establish an operational plan which determines the exact number of squads, squadrons and municipalities where the organizations must operate.”^[49] Colombia’s 2011–2013 operational plan is a central component of the extension request. Fifteen of 660 possibly mine-affected municipalities in five of Colombia’s 32 departments, with contamination covering an estimated 15km², were deemed priorities for clearance by 2013.^[50]

Colombia did not include an operational plan for 2014–2020 in its extension request because of the lack of information on contamination and the uncertainty of the role and capacity of NGOs.^[51]

Croatia

Croatia cleared and otherwise released or cancelled a total of 340km² of SHAs between 1998, when the Croatian Mine Action Center (CROMAC) was set up, and the end of 2010.^[52] It has, however, consistently not met the targets set out in its extension request in the three years since it was granted. In 2008, it released 42.5km² compared with the target of 53km²; in 2009 it released 62.59km² while the target was 73km²; and in 2010 it released 69.95km², significantly less than the 100km² projected in the extension request.^[53] As a result, Croatia still had 815.3km2 at the start of 2011 compared with the 771km² projected in the extension request.^[54]

Croatia’s National Mine Action Plan (NMAP) sets targets that differ from those in the extension request, providing for slightly lower rates of clearance than those in the extension request up to 2012 and higher rates of clearance in subsequent years.^[55] However, Croatia says meeting the targets of both the extension request and the NMAP has been frustrated by cuts in funding as a result of the global financial crisis. These were expected to result in even less funding for mine action in 2011 than the previous year, forcing CROMAC to review its operations and methodology and place greater emphasis on land release by non-technical and technical survey. By these measures and other fundraising initiatives, Croatia said it hoped it would be able to achieve its extension request targets.^[56]

Denmark

In December 2010, the Tenth Meeting of States Parties granted Denmark’s request for a second extension to its Article 5 deadline, until 1 July 2012.^[57] In granting the request, the meeting noted that Denmark had “complied with the commitments it had made, as recorded in the decisions of the Ninth Meeting of the States Parties, to obtain clarity regarding the remaining challenge, produce a detailed plan and submit a second extension request.” It noted that this affirmed “the importance of a State Party, should it find itself in a situation similar to that of Denmark in 2008, requesting only the period of time necessary to assess relevant facts and develop a meaningful forward looking plan based on these facts.”^[58]

In June 2011, Denmark stated that 310,000m² of area was still to be cleared from the World War II minefield on the Skallingen peninsula and again affirmed that the remaining area would be cleared at the latest by its July 2012 deadline. It noted, however, that clearing the dunes has been “challenging.” The contractor engaged for clearance had been expected to complete clearance by May 2011, but this was later expected to occur before the end of 2011. If possible, the area would be released earlier than July 2012.^[59]

Ecuador

In 2010, Ecuador exchanged information with Peru on mined areas located on and across the border between the two countries. This resulted in a significantly increased total figure of almost 1.9km2 of contaminated area^[60] across four provinces in Ecuador (Loja, Morona Santiago, Pastaza, and Zamora Chinchipe) and more than tripled the size of the problem it reported in 2009. In June 2011, at the Standing Committee meetings, Ecuador noted that mine clearance was occurring in accordance with the timeline set out in its Article 5 deadline extension request and that it had increased the number of deminers from 60 to around 100 as planned.^[61] However, although Ecuador has met the clearance goals it set out in its 2010–2018 operational plan, it has so far released a total of less than 0.2km² of mined area, leaving almost 0.5km² still to be released from its original estimate of contamination and more than 1.7km² based on its new estimate of contamination.^[62]

Guinea-Bissau

On 8 September 2010, Guinea-Bissau submitted a request for a two-month extension to its Article 5 deadline. In granting the request, the Tenth Meeting of States Parties stated that, given that a financial shortfall could affect the realization of Guinea-Bissau’s plan, resource mobilization could be greatly aided if Guinea-Bissau demonstrated greater national ownership by making a national financial investment into Article 5 implementation. The meeting further noted that while Guinea-Bissau has been slow to adopt efficient land release practices and that while its progress to date has been modest, Guinea-Bissau was making a commitment through its extension request to more efficiently and expediently proceed with Article 5 implementation.^[63]

Indeed, clearance of mined areas has been extremely slow in Guinea-Bissau, with only about 1.3km² of mined areas cleared in the last five years, and data, especially for 2009, does not appear to be reliable. However, as a result of a nationwide survey of contamination in 2010–2011, Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) reported in March 2011 that it expected clearance of mined areas to be completed before the end of 2011,^[64] in time for Guinea-Bissau to meet its extended Article 5 deadline.

Jordan

At the Tenth Meeting of States Parties Jordan stated it would complete clearance of all known mined areas by the end of 2011 and it would complete quality assurance of the area by its extended Article 5 deadline of May 2012.^[65] In June 2011, Jordan expressed confidence the northern border project would meet its May 2012 clearance deadline, although NPA reports verification of land around the known minefields will take longer. The outlook for Jordan’s ongoing Sampling and Verification Project, however, appears more uncertain. Jordan told the Standing Committee meeting in June 2011 that it is conducting a review in which “a new plan will be developed to calculate the project’s estimated completion date.”^[66]

Mauritania

On 10 April 2010, Mauritania submitted a request for a five-year extension to its Article 5 deadline. Mauritania explained that the reasons for its failure to meet its deadline were a lack of financial resources, insufficient progress in demining operations, use of only manual demining techniques, and difficult soil and climatic factors.^[67] In presenting the request to the intersessional Standing Committee meetings in June 2010, Mauritania stated that it had a coherent plan that combined land release by survey and clearance and that it hoped to involve Handicap International (HI) and NPA in its demining program.^[68]

Only minimal mine clearance occurred in 2009, and no mined area was projected to be cleared during 2010 according to the extension request.^[69] Mauritania has, however, set explicit targets for clearance during the five-year extension period, and noted its intention to seek additional demining capacity from international NGOs as well as additional funding from both national and international sources, and to enhance demining productivity with the use of machines.^[70] In 2011, NPA set up a program in Mauritania to support the national mine action authority in addressing mine and cluster munition contamination.

Mozambique

Since Mozambique submitted its Article 5 Extension Request in 2008 it has identified new SHAs through the Mine Free District Assessment approach, from a HALO survey on the Zimbabwe border, and from reports of residual contamination in the four northern provinces. This has resulted in almost twice as much area to clear as reported in its extension request. Despite this new contamination, at the end of 2010 Mozambique was still believed to be in a position to meet its extended Article 5 deadline of March 2014. The National Demining Institute reported that approximately 10km² of mined areas remained, plus 2.9km² on the Zimbabwe border and contaminated area along the railway lines. If, however, funding falls short, more new mined areas are found, and 2011 clearance targets are not met, it is far less likely that Mozambique will be able to meet its 2014 deadline.

Nicaragua

In accordance with its one-year extension to its Article 5 deadline, Nicaragua was required to complete mine clearance operations by 1 May 2010. In June 2010, Nicaragua announced it had cleared all known mined areas in time and had thus completed its Article 5 obligations.^[71] Over a 17-year period, Nicaragua cleared almost 12km² of mined areas, destroying in the process almost 180,000 mines at an estimated total cost of $82 million.^[72]

Peru

In June 2010, Peru reported 36 mined areas remained, covering a total of 192,700m² in Amazonas department, and containing 28,514 mines^[73]. In May 2011, Peru reported the same number of mined areas after having cleared 36,000m² of contaminated area.^[74] However, there appears to be significant additional contamination. As noted above, Peru and Ecuador have been exchanging information about mined areas on the border between the two countries since May 2010.^[75] In its Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 report for 2010, Peru included 10 previously unreported areas.^[76] The extent of this contamination has not, though, been reported. Thus, while Peru has made good progress in clearing the mined areas around state infrastructure, it is not clear how the 10 newly identified mined areas will affect Peru’s ability to meet its 2017 Article 5 deadline.

Senegal

Senegal has not formally reported in detail on its progress in demining in 2009 or 2010 and has still to determine the extent of remaining contamination with any degree of precision. At the Second Review Conference, Senegal expressed its hope that it would have fulfilled its Article 5 obligations before 2015 if the peace process continues.^[77] Senegal previously stated its intention not to seek a second extension period, except for “truly exceptional circumstances.”^[78] In the past five years, however, demining has cleared only a very small extent of mine contamination, and the total estimate for mined areas to be released has increased, leading to growing concerns that Senegal will not meet its extended Article 5 deadline. In June 2011, Senegal reported that it had cleared a total of only 121,637m² since demining operations effectively began in 2008, with clearance output decreasing year on year.^[79]

Tajikistan

In general, mine clearance in Tajikistan has proceeded slowly, and operations were only initiated several years after it became a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. Furthermore, Tajikistan has still to establish the precise extent of mine contamination, although re-survey has clarified the mine threat on the border with Afghanistan. New national and international capacity now in place, including machines and mine detection dogs, should speed up land release significantly, and should enable Tajikistan to complete its Article 5 obligations well before its extended deadline of 2020.

Thailand

Thailand has already fallen far behind the targets set out in its Article 5 extension request. Land released in 2010 totaled 5.23km²,^[80] representing less than 1% of the 546.8km² Thailand identifies as mine contaminated. UNDP observed in a report at the end of January 2011 that at the current rate of clearance, “it is estimated that it will take Thailand several decades to clear all landmines.”^[81]

Lack of attention to mine action on the part of political leaders has become one of the biggest constraints on progress resulting in a lack of funds for the Thai Mine Action Center (TMAC) or the mine action sector. TMAC reported a 60% increase in the budget allocated for fiscal 2011 (year beginning October 2010) to $2.5 million but noted this represented 10% of what it had sought under the Article 5 extension plan.^[82] In a bid to attract international support, Thailand organized a conference on mine action with donor countries and international organizations in January 2011 and introduced a concept of “Mine-free Provinces” focusing on all pillars of mine action in individual provinces so as to raise donor awareness of needs.^[83] Nonetheless, in June 2011 Thailand again identified fundraising as a major challenge.^[84] New demining capacity was added in 2011. Under a memorandum of understanding signed with TMAC in November 2010, NPA started a land release pilot project in early 2011 working with a 10-strong survey team undertaking technical and non-technical survey along the border with Cambodia.^[85]

Uganda

In July 2009, Uganda declared that it had underestimated the complexity of its clearance operations and the time required to clear them; subsequently it would not meet its 1 August 2009 Article 5 deadline. It applied for a three-year extension,^[86] which was approved at the Second Review Conference in December 2009. An essential element in Uganda’s three-year plan was the use of a MineWolf vegetation cutting machine belonging to NPA in Sudan.

In March 2010, the Uganda Mine Action Centre (UMAC) reported to the Monitor that NPA had brought a MineWolf into Uganda and that it had helped to clear the Ngomoromo area by the middle of that month, several months ahead of schedule, indicating that Uganda might be in a position to complete its Article 5 obligations before 2012.^[87] In December 2010, however, Uganda announced it had identified five small SHAs covered in heavy vegetation that required a MineWolf.^[88]

In July 2011, UMAC provided an update of the original and remaining problem, which more than doubled the number of SHAs believed to contain antipersonnel mines and increased the total estimate of contaminated area by more than 700,000m². It also included a completely new mined area some 300,000m2 in size at Bibia, a town in Amuru district on the Sudan border. Of the total of 20 SHAs identified in Agoro, Bibia, and Ngomoromo three had been cleared and quality controlled as of July 2011, and two discredited, leaving 15 SHAs and almost 0.9km² to release by August 2012.^[89] It was not clear whether the August 2012 deadline will be met.

United Kingdom

At the June 2010 intersessional Standing Committee meetings, the UK reported the completion of its four-site pilot project that started on 4 December 2009 and was completed on 4 June 2010.^[90] The UK stated that it would report the findings of its analysis and agreed next steps to States Parties at the Tenth Meeting of States Parties in November 2010.^[91] The UK did not, however, announce any further clearance plans at that meeting. In a statement to the meeting, the ICBL regretted the failure of the UK to meet its undertaking to provide “as soon as possible, but not later than 30 June 2010 a detailed explanation of…the implications for future demining” in order to meet the UK’s obligations under Article 5 of the treaty.^[92]

In June 2011, the UK announced that it would be seeking contractors for land release of at least part of one or possibly two SHAs, one behind the Stanley Common Fence, which borders the capital, Port Stanley; the other at the Murrell Peninsula, some 4km from Port Stanley.^[93] However, it was not foreseen that any mine clearance would take place. According to the UK: “The identification of the exact location and extent of the minefields in this area will be useful for subsequent clearance programmes.”^[94]

In an annex to its Article 5 deadline extension request, the UK included the Feasibility Study conducted in 2007, which concluded with respect to the Murrell Peninsula that: “The whole of the Murrell peninsula was classified as suspect on the basis of very little evidence, except for the five coves, which are assumed as mined. Since then, the whole area has been heavily pastured for 25 years by sheep and possibly cattle without accident, and a colony of penguins lives in the middle of it. The entire peninsula, except for its coves, could probably be re-classified as clear if some confidence-building clearance activity took place.”^[95] The UK reported in its extension request that the SHAs in the Murrell Peninsula total some 5.5km² in size.^[96] The Feasibility Study also suggested that SHA M65 beside the Stanley Common Fence (some 0.2km² in size) may contain no mines.^[97]

The ICBL called upon the UK to provide a concrete plan and budget for fulfilling its Article 5 clearance obligations. It also reiterated that affected States Parties must clear all mined areas, not only those with a humanitarian impact.^[98] In response, the UK stated that it had foreseen a two-year pilot project in its extension request before it would be in a position to set out a full plan to meet its legal obligations.^[99]

Venezuela

Venezuela did not begin clearing mines until 2010, more than 10 years after becoming party to the Mine Ban Treaty. By April 2011, it appeared that Venezuela had cleared four of its 13 mined areas, leaving nine to be released.^[100] Venezuela had earlier cited the weather, prolonged procurement procedures, a fall in Gross National Product, as well as new priorities for its government as the reasons for failing to conduct mine clearance in accordance with its treaty deadline.^[101] In December 2010, Venezuela said new procurement procedures for demining equipment should allow the total additional time needed to clear all mined areas to be reduced from five years to four and that clearance of all mined areas should be completed by June 2013.^[102]

Yemen

It is not known whether Yemen will meet its extended Article 5 deadline. Yemen did not update the Standing Committee on Mine Clearance, Mine Risk Education and Mine Action Technologies either in June 2010 or in June 2011, or the Tenth Meeting of States Parties, on its progress in implementing its Article 5 obligations. Under Action Point 13 of the Cartagena Action Plan adopted by the Second Review Conference in 2009, States Parties undertake to: “Complete implementation of Article 5 as soon as possible but not later than their extended deadlines, ensure progress toward completion proceeds in accordance with the commitments made in their extension requests and the decisions taken on their requests, and report regularly on such progress to the meetings of the Standing Committee on Mine Clearance, Mine Risk Education and Mine Action Technologies, Meetings of the States Parties and Review Conferences.”^[103] It is not known what impact the upsurge in violence in 2011 has had on the mine action program.

Zimbabwe

At the Second Review Conference of the Mine Ban Treaty, Zimbabwe said since the beginning of 2009 “no significant progress” had been made in its clearance program due to the lack of both international and national support.^[104] In June 2010 at the Standing Committee meetings, Zimbabwe repeated that it w ould not be able to complete the planned surveying in the 22-month extension period and stated that it would request another extension.^[105]

In July 2010, the ISU sent a consultant to Zimbabwe for one week to conduct a needs assessment and develop a plan, including a budget, for the necessary survey. On 3 August 2010, Zimbabwe submitted a second extension request based on the ISU consultancy findings. The second extension requested 24 months to conduct surveys of four areas that have never been surveyed but have always been suspected to contain mines. Zimbabwe stated they were confident of accessing international assistance for the survey although they had not accessed significant funding since 2000 and did not indicate who the donors would be or who would provide the technical assistance.^[106]

After the survey is completed Zimbabwe will submit a third extension request.^[107] In December 2010, the States Parties granted the 24-month extension request and noted the commitments by Zimbabwe whereby within 12 months (by August 2011) non-technical survey would be conducted of the four “unknown areas” (Kariba, Lusulu, Mukumbura, and Rushinga) as would technical survey of parts of the five “known minefields.”^[108]

In June 2011, at the Standing Committee meetings, Zimbabwe reported it had not received any international funding or technical support, nor had much progress been made on surveying. In its second Article 5 deadline extension request, the Zimbabwe Mine Action Centre indicated it would need $100 million to clear the remaining 225km² of contaminated area.^[109]

Compliance with Article 5 among States Parties with later deadlines

Without enhanced efforts, future compliance with Article 5 deadlines seems likely to be similarly disappointing. Based on progress to date, the Monitor believes that the following States Parties are not on track to comply with their treaty clearance obligations by their deadlines, indicated below in parentheses: Afghanistan (2013); Angola (2013); Cyprus (2013); Sudan (2014); and Turkey (2014). Regrettably, Article 5 clearance deadline extension requests are becoming the norm rather than the exception.

Iraq

Among States Parties with later Article 5 deadlines, Iraq (2018 deadline) is a particular concern. Three years after it adhered to the treaty, Iraq has still to demonstrate how it expects to progress towards fulfilling its international legal obligations. Mine action continued to be held back by lack of precise data on the mine threat and political uncertainties have impeded the development of an effective institutional framework for mine action.

Clearance operations in the center and south of Iraq were halted by a suspension of operations order imposed by the Ministry of Defense on 23 December 2008. The ministry halted operations on grounds of security and in order to vet personnel engaged by demining operators who would therefore have access to mines and/or explosive ordnance.^[110] The Ministry of Defense partially lifted the suspension in May 2009 to allow operators to conduct non-technical survey and risk education, but the ban on clearance and demolitions of cleared items remained in place until August 2009. Even then, however, accrediting organizations for operations was slow, and no demolitions of cleared items by any organization except the military were possible until May 2010.^[111]

Only in three northern Iraqi governorates, where mine action is under the management of the Iraqi Kurdistan Mine Action Agency and the General Directorate of Mine Action, has there been concerted action to deal with the mine threat. In central and southern Iraq, most of the reported commercial and humanitarian clearance consists of BAC of unexploded submunitions and other UXO. The army has embarked on survey of the mine threat and as of mid-2011 was the only operator in central and southern Iraq to be tackling it.

Montenegro

Montenegro (2017 deadline) reported to the media in November 2007 that it had completed clearance of mines on its territory.^[112] Its Article 7 report for 2008 it stated, “There are no areas under Montenegro’s jurisdiction or control in which anti-personnel mines are known or suspected to be emplaced.”^[113] However, Montenegro still had to survey a mountainous area on its borders with BiH and Croatia to clarify if the contamination that affects the Croatian side of the border also affects Montenegro.^[114] By September 2011, Montenegro had not officially declared completion of its Article 5 obligations.

Turkey

Certain States Parties have still to acknowledge that they are legally obliged by the treaty to clear areas they either control or over which they assert jurisdiction.^[115] As of September 2010, Turkey had not yet formally acknowledged its responsibility for clearance in northern Cyprus, which is controlled by Turkish forces.

Cyprus

The government of Cyprus has not yet declared whether it will seek an extension if contamination remains in areas of the island it does not control. In June 2011, Cyprus stated that it: “takes its international responsibilities very seriously, respects the letter of the Convention and values its contractual obligations stemming therefrom. Given the continuation of the well-known situation on the island, the government is currently contemplating whether further measures might be considered as necessary for duly implementing its obligations under Article 5….”^[116]

Moldova

In the case of Moldova, whose Article 5 deadline expired on 1 March 2011, a statement in June 2008 by a government official had raised hopes that it had acknowledged its responsibility for clearance of any mined areas containing antipersonnel mines in the breakaway republic of Transnistria, where it continues to assert its jurisdiction. This statement was, however, later disavowed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, leaving its compliance with Article 5 uncertain.

Risk Education: Evolving Needs and Changing Approaches

Mine and ERW risk education (RE)^[117] continues to adapt to the evolving patterns of contamination and impact of antipersonnel and antivehicle mines, cluster munition remnants, and other ERW. Twenty years of mine and battle area clearance have made significant inroads into the explosive threat, especially from antipersonnel mines, with the result that in many countries there is not, or no longer, a humanitarian crisis of casualties from explosive ordnance. Indeed, in addition to the 19 states that have claimed completion of clearance of known mined areas,^[118] many others have a low or residual threat that would typically need only limited RE activities.

Even in some of the most heavily mine-affected countries, such as Afghanistan, Angola,^[119] and Cambodia, mine casualties have been generally declining for several years. In Cambodia, where recorded mine casualties increased in 2010 compared with the previous year, only 10 fatalities and 53 injured were from antipersonnel mines,^[120] a significant reduction compared to five years ago.^[121]

Emergency RE, though, continues to be sorely needed in Colombia, Myanmar, Pakistan, and Somalia especially, while Libya too became a priority following the outbreak of armed conflict in February 2011. Other situations potentially requiring an emergency response included Eritrea, Yemen (where casualties significantly increased in 2010 compared with the previous year), and Sudan/South Sudan.

Persisting, significant obstacles to safe access indicate that the needs of the civilian population in Myanmar for RE continue to be grossly underserved. In Pakistan, however, where international engagement in mine action is limited to RE, interventions seem to be making headway—reaching more people in, or from, the conflict-affected border tribal areas—and contacts with communities have resulted in some roving clearance/destruction of items of UXO.

Colombia continues to implement a major RE program involving many national organizations. In 2010, the Presidential Antipersonnel Mine Action Program (PAICMA) designed specific RE materials for coca eradicators since, increasingly, this is one of the most vulnerable groups to mine incidents, based on casualty rates. The rate of casualties among coca eradicators rose from 8% of all civilian casualties in 2006 and 2007, to 34% in 2010.^[122]

In Libya, which faced a new mine and ERW threat in 2011, including from unexploded submunitions, UNICEF and HI initiated a program and other international mine action NGOs have included an RE component in their work. As of July 2011, direct RE sessions were underway in internally displaced person (IDP) camps in eastern Libya and more than 30,000 information leaflets had been distributed to IDP communities in Ajdabiya, Benghazi, Brega, and Misrata in addition to Tunisian border areas.^[123]

In Somalia, also in 2011, the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) planned to provide emergency RE messages in Mogadishu, Afgooye, Galgaduud, and other priority areas affected by the ongoing armed conflict.^[124] Sudan has an extensive RE program throughout the country. In 2010, RE was provided in 22 states, to more than 3 million people. UNICEF provided support to planning, implementation, and the management of RE at the state and national level. More than 400,000 persons, primarily refugees, IDPs, and communities impacted by mines and ERW, received RE through UNICEF-supported programs in 2010.^[125]

Recognizing that standardized “don’t touch” messages have relatively short-lived effectiveness, especially beyond the initial emergency phase, some states are looking to more sophisticated approaches to RE, including through community liaison. Lao PDR, for example, a State Party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions with consequent obligations to conduct risk reduction education to ensure awareness among civilians living in or around cluster munition contaminated areas of the risks posed by cluster munition remnants,^[126] conducted a review of RE in 2010 and decided to move away from “traditional awareness-raising” to more targeted interventions. At the Convention on Cluster Munitions Intersessional Meeting in June 2011 it reported that RE strategies “are evolving…to more complex and targeted processes focused on behavior change. Such processes involve data analysis to identify high‐risk groups, development of new MRE materials (in local languages where appropriate), community liaison, development of government policies on scrap metal, as well as teacher training programmes and the growing involvement of Buddhist monks.”^[127] In June 2011, the Lao National Regulatory Authority initiated a survey of knowledge, attitudes, and practices to assess the effectiveness of RE materials and strategies.^[128]

There is also a continuing trend to institutionalize RE within the school system, sometimes in tandem with other life skills or response to other threats, such as from the proliferation of small arms. In Afghanistan, for example, there has been further progress in developing the provision of RE in schools with training of teachers (some 19,000 had been trained to deliver RE by 2011). In Sri Lanka, where UNICEF has led the post-conflict development of RE, in December 2010 the Ministry of Education’s academic affairs board approved an RE curriculum for schools paving the way for training teachers in the new curriculum in 2011.^[129]The National Strategy for Mine Action notes that the general level of understanding of the threat from mines and ERW is high but the need for continuing RE remains since many communities in the north remain close to contaminated or un-surveyed areas and because of large numbers of people from the south visiting northern districts.^[130] In 2010, with UNICEF support, the National Mine Action Authority in Sudan and the Ministry of Education began integrating RE into the school curriculum in the Nuba Mountains, Western and Southern Darfur, and southern Sudan.

In Kosovo, the NGO Center for Promotion of Education (QPEA) implemented a school-based RE project from November 2009 to October 2010 in cooperation with the Serbian NGO “Future,” which aimed to increase the role of teachers and schools in RE activities.^[131] In Somaliland, Danish Demining Group (DDG), MAG, HI, and the Somaliland Mine Action Center collaborated in a joint effort to develop RE materials for children that may become part of the social science school curriculum. In collaboration with the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and UNICEF, operators provided initial input on mine risks as well as firearms safety and conflict management.^[132]

[1] The others that have reported completing clearance are: Albania, Bulgaria, Costa Rica, El Salvador, France, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, FYR Macedonia, Malawi, Nicaragua, Rwanda, Suriname, Swaziland, Tunisia, and Zambia. Djibouti’s status is unclear and the Monitor does not consider that Djibouti has made a formal declaration of compliance, while Greece still has one mined area on the island of Rhodes to release.