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Global demining efforts strained by rising conflicts and shrinking aid
Demining experts from around the world have been sharing their collective shock at the widespread and growing threat from unexploded ordnance, the new head of the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) said on Wednesday.
“They’re telling me, ‘Never in my career have I ever seen so many conflicts,’” said Kazumi Ogawa, speaking following the conclusion of a meeting of Mine Action National Directors and UN advisers in Geneva.
Despite the clear need to continue demining work in the world’s conflict zones and those now at peace, “for various reasons, the level of funding has gone down in terms of humanitarian assistance”, Ms. Ogawa noted.
In Gaza, for instance, a staggering 90 per cent of the people that are injured by explosive hazards from the Hamas-Israel war are civilians – “and of those, the majority of them are children”, she stressed.
UNMAS has warned that between five and 10 per cent of all munitions fired in Gaza have not detonated. The result is that potentially lethal unexploded ordnance is now “ingrained” in the devastated enclave, the mine action service chief said.
“We can gather the explosive hazards and we cordon them off in Gaza and so they're blocked off, but we're not able to destroy them - we're not able to take them out at the moment. And so, they sit there in piles and you're getting more and more piles of explosive hazards that sit around that children are expected to walk around.”
She added: “You have fathers that will go through the rubble to try to get home and find explosive devices and won’t know what to do with it; you'll find children that are playing, right, and coming across these hazards.”
Despite such a massive threat, there’s never enough support for demining and risk education, particularly today, amid a crisis in support for international agencies and bodies including the UN, and a spike in the number of conflicts.
“The problem is, as budgets - national budgets - are diverted towards, defence, for example, and away from humanitarian assistance, what we're seeing is the effect of that on the ground,” said Ms. Ogawa. “So, in Afghanistan, for example, one child is killed every day.”
In addition to the human cost of landmines and other unexploded remnants of war, the economic impact is a significant brake on development too.
“If a child is maimed, you're asking the family to take care of that child through adulthood, the community to make concessions for that child as he or she becomes a participant in the community. I mean, it's just it's not just one person dying, right?” Ms. Ogawa explained.
The UNMAS Director highlighted the positive work supported by the UN around the world to counter landmines and other unexploded weapons, which is helping communities and nations to rebuild.
In Colombia, where there’s a legacy of antipersonnel mines and other explosive ordnance contamination from the decades-long civil war, an initiative from national transitional justice mechanism involves former fighters “to help with the recovery and restoration of those communities, including through demining and mine action, victim assistance, risk education”, Ms. Ogawa said.
“It's a way of incorporating - instead of penalizing the ex-combatants by putting them in jail, it's really incorporating them to be a part of the community. And to go back and to make amends alongside the members of the community.” If you talk to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace in Colombia, it's super exciting what they're doing.”
The 1997 international treaty to eradicate landmines – known officially as the Anti-Personnel Landmines Convention – has proved effective at prohibiting antipersonnel landmines but in 2025 and early 2026, several European nations initiated or completed the process of withdrawing from it.
The new UNMAS Director stressed the value of the Treaty and its relevance to everyone, everywhere: “Let's remember that we're here not just for adherence to international conventions for the sake of adherence for us to be able to say, ‘Oh, here's one more country.’ It's so that it then trickles down and creates the conditions for people to live in safety and security.”
ends
Kazumi Ogawa, Director UN Mine Action Service - UNMAS
TRT: 3 min 45s
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 29 APRIL 2026 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
Speaker:
- Kazumi Ogawa, Director UN Mine Action Service - UNMAS
SHOTLIST
- Exterior wide, UN Geneva flag alley.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Kazumi Ogawa, Director UN Mine Action Service – UNMAS: “What was striking to me this past week is the number of national directors, the number of partners who have a lot of extensive experience, who come to me and say, ‘Never in my life, never in my career have I ever seen so many conflicts,’ and at the same time, as you know, for various reasons, the level of funding has gone down in terms of humanitarian assistance.”
- Wide, destruction in Gaza, from UNMAS film “Gaza: Creating Safe Pathways”.
- Close, destruction in Gaza, from UNMAS film “Gaza: Creating Safe Pathways”.
- Wide, a busy road in Gaza, from UNMAS film “Gaza: Creating Safe Pathways”.
- Wide, a shelled mosque in Sudan, from UNMAS film “2 min 51 sec in Sudan”.
- Wide, a huge mound of earth and rubble in Gaza, from UNMAS film “Gaza: Creating Safe Pathways”.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Kazumi Ogawa, Director UN Mine Action Service – UNMAS: “In the case of Colombia, what has happened is that the perpetrators of the violence in the communities are sentenced in a way, to go back to and help with the recovery and restoration of those communities, including through demining and mine action, victim assistance, risk education.”
- Wide, mine clearance expert working, from UNMAS film “2 min 51 sec in Sudan”.
- Wide, mine clearance expert working, from UNMAS film “2 min 51 sec in Sudan”.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Kazumi Ogawa, Director UN Mine Action Service – UNMAS: “It's a way of incorporating - instead of penalizing the ex-combatants by putting them in jail - it's really incorporating them to be a part of the community. And to go back and to make amends alongside the members of the community. If you talk to the special jurisdiction for peace in Colombia, it's super exciting what they're doing.”
- Wide, artillery shells and weapons lying on forest floor, from UNMAS film, “South Sudan: Peace is Cheaper Than War”.
- Wide, panning, artillery rounds on forest floor, from UNMAS film, “South Sudan: Peace is Cheaper Than War”.
- Close, spent casing on forest floor with rusted unidentified objects, from UNMAS film, “South Sudan: Peace is Cheaper Than War”.
- Medium de-zoom, rocket propelled grenade on forest floor, from UNMAS film, “South Sudan: Peace is Cheaper Than War”.
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH): Kazumi Ogawa, Director, UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS): “In Gaza, as our Director of Programmes has said, it's particularly ingrained in the way that the community functions. And so, you have fathers that will go through the rubble to try to get home and find explosive devices and won’t know what to do with it; you'll find children that are playing, right, and coming across these hazards.”
- Wide, young men wielding sledgehammers to break down slabs of concrete from destroyed buildings, from UNMAS film “Gaza: Creating Safe Pathways”.
- Close, large empty missile casing amid rubble, from UNMAS film “Gaza: Creating Safe Pathways”.
- Wide, devastation in Gaza, from UNMAS film “Gaza: Creating Safe Pathways”.
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH): Kazumi Ogawa, Director, UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS): “The problem is, as budgets - national budgets - are diverted towards defence, for example, and away from humanitarian assistance, what we're seeing is the effect of that on the ground. So, in Afghanistan, for example, one child is killed every day. One child is killed every day.”
- Wide, large explosion of ordnance removed from Khartoum, from UNMAS film “2 min 51 sec in Sudan”.
- Wide, flattened buildings in Gaza, from UNMAS film “Gaza: Creating Safe Pathways”.
- Wide, Gazans walk amid destruction in the enclave, from UNMAS film “Gaza: Creating Safe Pathways”.
- Wide, massive destruction in Gaza, from UNMAS film “Gaza: Creating Safe Pathways”.
- Medium, UNMAS workers and demining experts from UNMAS film “2 min 51 sec in Sudan”.
- Medium, demining expert attaching knee pad, from UNMAS film, “South Sudan: Peace is Cheaper Than War”.
- Medium, demining expert attaching helmet and visor, from UNMAS film, “South Sudan: Peace is Cheaper Than War”.
- Medium, demining expert adjusting protective body vest, from UNMAS film, “South Sudan: Peace is Cheaper Than War”.
- Wide, demining expert using detector in field, from UNMAS film, “South Sudan: Peace is Cheaper Than War”.
- Medium, demining expert on knees and using trowel to dig in field, from UNMAS film, “South Sudan: Peace is Cheaper Than War”.
- Wide, child onlookers, from UNMAS film, “South Sudan: Peace is Cheaper Than War”.
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