Landmine death toll keeps mounting in Yemen
Sheba Intelligence
Landmines killed three people over the last two days in Yemen's Al-Jawf province, adding to the civilian death toll in the war-ravaged country.
Hadi Mohammed Al-Jaoni, 50 years old, died on Wednesday in a mine blast while grazing his cattle in the Alghail district of Al-Jawf, the Yemeni Landmines Observatory said.
On Tuesday, two other civilians, Ayid Zayed Alzabri and Ali Hassan Alzabri, also lost their lives when a landmine detonated while traveling in their car in the Khabb wa ash Sha'af district of Al-Jawf.
The UN estimates that millions of landmines have been laid in multiple areas across Yemen, turning safe roads, neighborhoods, mountains, and pastures into dangerous spots. Today, a definite map of the mined places is hard to obtain. Human rights organizations have accused the Ansar Allah (Houthi) group of planting over 2 million landmines.
From 2017 through 2022, anti-personnel or anti-vehicle mines left more than 1,929 civilian deaths, according to the Yemeni Coalition for Monitoring Human Rights Violations. The mines destroyed or damaged more than 2,872 public and private facilities in several provinces.
Ousama Algosaibi, the Managing Director of Masam Project, said on Wednesday, August 2, that no signs indicate the end of the landmine threat soon. "Masam" is a Saudi demining initiative that began in 2018 to remove mines planted during the Yemen war.
Algosaibi indicated that "Masam" has so far cleared more than 400,000 landmines, improvised explosive devices, and unexploded ordnance, including anti-personnel and anti-tank mines. The project cleared 2,815 landmines last month.
Despite the lull in fighting Yemen has seen since last year, landmines continue to maim and murder civilians nonstop. About 75 percent of those affected by mines will suffer from permanent disabilities, mutilation, and lifelong psychological trauma, said the American Center for Justice (ACJ)
Today, Yemen needs several years to get rid of the landmines calamity. Regarding his vision of this crisis, Algosaibi said, "If we have enough funding, teams, and information, I think it will take another ten years."
