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UNIDIR - Press Conference - 14 November 2023
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STORY: UNIDIR - Press Conference - 14 November 2023
TRT: 2:36”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 14 November 2023 - GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
SHOTLIST
- Exterior medium shot: UN building with UN flag, UN Geneva.
- Wide shot, press briefing room with journalists and screens, UN Geneva
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) – Loren Persi, Landmine Monitor 2023 Impact Team Lead: “In the previous year there was 4,710 casualties recorded. It was down from 5,544. But there were significant increases in some countries, primarily Ukraine. And in Ukraine, the number of civilian casualties recorded increased tenfold from around 60 in 2021 to around 600 in 2022.”
- Cutaway: Close up, journalist listening, UN Geneva
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) – Loren Persi, Landmine Monitor 2023 Impact Team Lead: “The effects of landmines and explosive remnants of war continue to mostly harm civilians and particularly children. And it was the case that children accounted for basically half of civilian casualties and civilians were the vast majority of casualties in 2022.”
- Cutaway: Medium shot, podium and speakers, UN Geneva
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) - Mark Hiznay, Landmine Monitor 2023 Ban Policy Editor: “Ukrainian government forces used anti-personnel mines in violation of the treaty in and around the city of Izium during 2022 when the city was under Russian control.”
- Cutaway: Close up, journalist listening, UN Geneva
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) – Mark Hiznay, Landmine Monitor 2023 Ban Policy Editor: “Russia has extensively used anti-personnel mines since its invasion in February of 2022. This has created an unprecedented situation where we have a non-state party using the weapon on the territory of a state party. In the 20 plus years, this has really never occurred before.”
- Cutaway: Wide shot, press briefing room with journalists and screens, UN Geneva
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) – Katrin Atkins, Landmine Monitor 2023 Impact Team Senior Researcher: “At least 60 states or other areas, including 33 state parties that are contaminated by anti-personnel landmines. We also have ten states parties that should provide more information with regard to a possible or a confirmed contamination with improvised mines.”
- Cutaway: Medium shot, podium and speakers, UN Geneva
- Cutaway: medium shot, journalist listening, UN Geneva
- Cutaway: Wide shot, press briefing room with journalists and screens, UN Geneva
Civilians accounted for 85 per cent of casualties by landmine and explosive remnants of war in 2022, half of them were children
More than 4,710 people were injured or killed by landmines and other explosive remnants in 2022 across 49 states, a UN-backed civil society report said on Tuesday.
The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), a network of over 1,000 NGOs, stated in its latest Landmine Monitor 2023 report that “there were significant increases in some countries, primarily Ukraine, where the number of civilian casualties recorded increased tenfold from around 60 in 2021 to around 600 in 2022,” said Loren Persi, one of the authors of the report, speaking at UN Geneva.
The Landmine Monitor 2023 report has been released ahead of the Mine Ban Treaty’s 21st Meeting of States Parties, which takes place at UN Geneva from 20 to 24 November.
The report states that civilians accounted for 85 per cent of landmine and explosive remnants of war (ERW) casualties recorded in 2022, half of them children (1,171). The highest number of casualties over the course of the year was recorded in Syria (834) and Ukraine (608).
“The effects of landmines and explosive remnants of war continue to mostly harm civilians and particularly children. It was the case that children accounted for basically half of civilian casualties and civilians were the vast majority of casualties in 2022,” said Mr. Persi.
Antipersonnel landmines are explosive devices that kill and wound people during and long after conflicts. They are placed above, under, or on the ground and explode from a person’s presence, proximity, or contact.
Antipersonnel mines are typically placed by hand, but they can also be scattered by aircraft, rockets, and artillery, or dispersed from specialized vehicles.
Amidst the conflict in Ukraine, the country saw a tenfold increase in the number of civilian landmine and ERW casualties compared to 2021 (58), said the report. Yemen and Myanmar both recorded more than 500 casualties in 2022.
New use of the weapon represents one of the greatest challenges to eradicating antipersonnel landmines globally. The 2023 Landmine Monitor report finds that “Ukrainian government forces used anti-personnel mines in violation of the treaty in and around the city of Izium during 2022 when the city was under Russian control.”
Mark Hiznay, Policy Editor of the Landmine Monitor 2023 report, said that Russia had “extensively used anti-personnel mines since its invasion (of Ukraine) in February of 2022. This has created an unprecedented situation where we have a non-State party using the weapon on the territory of a State party.”
In the 20-plus years since the international Ottowa mine ban treaty was signed, “this has really never occurred before”, Mr. Hiznay added.
A total of 30 States Parties have reported clearance of all mined areas from their territory since the Mine Ban Treaty came into force in 1999.
Affected States Parties continued to clear contaminated land in 2022, collectively clearing 219.31km² and destroying 169,276 antipersonnel landmines. Almost 60 per cent of the land cleared in 2022 was cleared in just two countries: Cambodia and Croatia.
However, there are still uncleared landmines in more than 60 countries and territories that destroy livelihoods, deny land use, and disrupt access to essential services.
“At least 60 states or other areas, including 33 state parties that are contaminated by anti-personnel landmines,” said Katrin Atkins, Landmine Monitor 2023 Impact Team Senior Researcher. “We also have ten states parties that should provide more information with regard to a possible or a confirmed contamination with improvised mines.”
Adopted on 18 September 1997, the Mine Ban Treaty prohibits the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of antipersonnel mines and requires victim assistance, mine clearance and stockpile destruction. Currently there are 164 States Parties to the treaty; the last countries to join it were Palestine and Sri Lanka in 2017.
-ends-
Teleprompter
[Other language spoken]
And on behalf of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, in cooperation with the International Campaign to Banned Banned Land Mines and Cluster Munitions Coalition, a warm welcome to the global launch of the Landmine Monitor 2023 report.
My name is Hardy Keats Donner and I'm a senior researcher for the Conventional Arms and Ammunition Programme at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, UNIDIR.
UNIDIR has long enjoyed close cooperation and collaboration with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and the Cluster Munition Coalition, hosting numerous launches of the respective campaigns Annual Landmine Monitor and Cluster Munition Monitor reports.
These annual reports monitor state parties implementation of the Mainland Treaty and the Convention on Cluster Munitions, as well as progress towards their full universalisation.
More generally, the Monitor assesses the international community's response to the humanitarian challenges and problems caused by landmines, cluster munitions and other explosive remnants of war.
This comprehensive reporting has made it a highly valued resource for the international community, providing a central repository of the latest data and information and analysis on these issues.
I am delighted to have the opportunity today to introduce the 25th edition of the Landmine Monitor.
It provides a global overview of developments relating to landmine ban policy use, production transfers, stockpiling and stockpile destruction.
The report also contains the latest information on landmine contamination and casualties, as well as efforts being made to reduce that impact via clearance, survey, risk education and assistance provided to victims.
The Landmine Monitor 2023 documents recent use of anti personal minds in Myanmar as well as in the Ukraine, and while the report finds that the annual area cleared increased significantly to almost double that of 2021, no states completed clearing all mined areas.
The number of recorded casualties and mines and ERW has been decreasing incrementally in recent years, but the impact on civilians remains ****, especially in countries where mines were recently used.
The total number of mine victims in the world continues to increase each year, but services and resources for assistance are not able to expand adequately and proportionally to meet this urgent need.
Today's launch is just a few days prior to the Mainban Treaty's 21st Annual Meeting of States Parties, which will take place here in Geneva next week under the Presidency of Germany.
The meeting offers States Parties an opportunity to showcase their progress and discuss remaining challenges, both their own and to the Convention as a whole.
In this regard, it can be expected that States Parties use this occasion to condemn any use of anti personal minds anywhere, by anyone and under any circumstances.
The meeting will also kick off a year of planning for the next review conference, which will take place in CM Riyadh, Cambodia in December 2024.
Generally, these review conferences offer a unique opportunity for reflection on how to improve the workings of the convention.
It also offers an incentive for States Parties to set out and reach major milestones in their implementation of the convention.
And with this brief words of introduction, I now have the pleasure and wish to hand over to the ICBL CMC Director, Miss Tamar Gabelnick, to lay out the reports main components and introduce the three experts from civil society whom we are delighted to have with us here today and who have been centrally involved in producing this year's Monitor report.
Tamar, over to you.
Thank you Hardy for the introduction and thank you Unidir for hosting this event.
I'm thrilled to be here on the occasion of the launch of this 25th edition of the Landline Monitor Report.
The Monitor is produced by a team of people who have enormous expertise.
Indeed, some of them have been with the Monitor since the early years of the project, and some of those are sitting here today.
They also have the experience needed to produce a reliable, comprehensive report year after year, that supports the Mine Action Community's efforts to achieve full universalization and implementation of the Mine Band Treaty.
The Mine Band Treaty is at the centre of our research and advocacy work because it is the instrument, the only instrument with the capacity to end the scourge of anti personal minds once and for all.
And it has worked extremely well over the years.
Despite the challenges that have arisen over the years and that the team will speak to today, we believe that by keeping the spotlight on these challenges as well as progress, we can encourage states to keep up the positive momentum and achieve the Treaty's full potential.
And we thank you as journalists for your interest in the subject and for helping us spread awareness of the developments, both good and bad.
So I will leave the talking today to the experts here and we'll quickly introduce them to present the findings of the Monitor and to answer your questions.
We will hear first from Mark Hisney, who is the band team lead for the Monitor.
And he will be covering universalization of the convention, new use, production and transfers, as well as stockpile destruction.
Lauren Percy, who is the Impact Team lead for the Monitor, will present highlights on casualties and victim assistance.
And Catherine Atkins, senior researcher on the Impact Team, will present findings related to risk education, contamination, clearance of contaminated lands, and financial resources available for mine action.
Just briefly before turning to Mark, I need to quickly recognise some of the others who have made the Monitor possible this year.
In addition to this hard working team here we have a group of editors and the production team.
The quality of the report is overseen by our monitoring and research committee made-up of the Colombian Campaign to Ban Landmines, Dan Church Aid, Danish Refugee Council, Handicapped and Inclusion and Human Rights Watch Mines Action Canada.
We are also deeply grateful to our donors, Austria, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Holy See, Norway, Switzerland and the United States.
And with that I turned it over to Mark.
So if we could have the slides please and if you could flip over to use.
[Other language spoken]
The Monitor has identified new anti personnel use by state party Ukraine and state party and non state parties Myanmar and Russia.
There is credible evidence that the Ukrainian government forces used anti personnel minds in violation of the treaty in and around the city of Isiam during 2022 when the city was under Russian control.
[Other language spoken]
Russia has extensively used anti personnel minds since its invasion in February of 2022.
This is created an unprecedented situation where we have a non state party using the weapon on the territory of the state party in the 20s plus years.
This has really never occurred before.
We've also documented use by non state armed groups of the weapon in at least five countries and I'll read those out where they are, Colombia, India, Myanmar, Thailand and Tunisia.
In addition to this, we've also documented very small allegations of use in other countries in the Lake Chad Basin and the Sahil, but they did not rise in number or frequency or frequency or seriousness to be able to document one.
For example, one mine being used, one suspected mine being used in Niger compared to the large amount of mines being put in the ground by Russia and Myanmar.
Myanmar is a very tragic situation.
We have reported every year since 1999 that the state and non state armed groups have been using the weapon.
We've been told that in the past year the problem has expanded exponentially, has increased to a greater size, and most of this is involving the mining of infrastructure, particularly mobile phone towers and power supplies.
Right back to the regular slide, there are 164 states in this Treaty 1 signatory, and then there's 33 that states that have not joined.
No new members have joined since 2017 and those were Palestine and Sri Lanka.
So universalization is definitely in order and requires some further effort amongst by states parties to bring more countries into the treaty.
[Other language spoken]
One of the central obligations to the Mine Ban Treaty is the destruction of stockpiles and we have recorded over the years over 55,000,000 anti personnel mines were destroyed from stockpiles and those are 55,000,000.
They were destroyed sitting in or from warehouses.
They were never put in the ground.
Stockpile destruction is one of the important aspects of mine action.
It's easier to destroy from stockpiles and to go find them in the woods.
94 states parties have declared completion of their stockpile destruction.
In normal terms that of the 164 states parties, 94 of them had the weapon.
We still have two states parties to go, both of which have been in violation of the treaties for missing their deadlines and that is Greece and Ukraine.
Greece is found a solution to its decade long problem of destroying the mines by sending them to Croatia and Ukraine amongst its many problems has 3.3 million anti personnel mines still to destroy.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
We are back to a dirty dozen or otherwise put 12 countries we've identified as producing the weapon in the past reporting period.
That number changed since last year with the addition of Armenia.
Not there have been allegations of Armenia producing anti personnel mines in previous years, but it was only during this reporting cycle that we felt the confidence to name them as producing factory produce anti personnel mines.
Now out of those 12, we only really think 5 or so countries are actively producing.
That means mines coming off a production line and those are India, Iran, Myanmar, Pakistan and Russia.
And we have evidence of the development and acquisition of new types of anti personnel mines by India and Russia.
By India, we're finding them in the procurement notices that the government routinely puts on the Internet.
And in Russia, they're being found the hard way by people stepping on them and causing casualties.
[Other language spoken]
And that ends my part of the presentation.
Happy to answer questions.
Over to you, Lauren.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
The landmine monitor records casualties from the previous calendar year, and that is in order to ensure that as much as possible, the data is collected in its place as it is available.
In 2022, there was again a decrease in casualties from what had been a massive peak in 2016, primarily due to the conflict in Syria and also Yemen and continuing casualties in Afghanistan and Colombia at that time.
Now we see a different situation and in the previous year there was 4710 casualties recorded.
It was down from 5544, but there were significant increases in some countries, primarily Ukraine.
And in Ukraine, the number of civilian casualties recorded increased tenfold, from around 60 in 2021 to around 600 in 2022.
And in other states party Yemen, the number of casualties increased not so much because of conflict, but because of peace.
And in some areas where people due to lulls in conflict were able to go out and access the land, there were casualties because they were unfamiliar with the area where mines and other explosive remnants of war were there waiting for them.
So the other country where, as Mark has mentioned, there was an increase in casualties, particularly anti personnel mine casualties, was Myanmar.
And although there have been anti personnel mine casualties in Myanmar, every year of reporting for the Cluster Mission Monitor, there was a significant increase and this led to an increase in the number of and ratio of anti personnel mine casualties overall compared to 2021.
The number of anti personnel mine casualties specifically in Ukraine was not well disaggregated because of the effects of conflict.
But what we know overall is that the effects of landmines and explosive remnants of war continue to mostly affect harm civilians and particularly children.
And it was the case that children accounted for basically half of civilian casualties and civilians were the vast majority of casualties in 2022, 85%.
So we could move to the next slide, please.
Casualties were identified in 51 States and other areas that was similar to recent years, and that includes casualties of all types of mines and explosive remnants of war, and 37 of those were party to the Landmine Ban Treaty.
And I think that one of the things that we're going to see in the future is better reporting on casualties from this past period as we've seen in previous years.
So that for example, the 608 casualties recorded for Ukraine is certainly not thought to be representative of all the landmine and the IW casualties that occurred.
And there was also a decrease, a significant decrease in the number of casualties recorded for Afghanistan, down from over 1000 to about 300 because of a a massive gap in reporting for Afghanistan during 2022 where recording just stopped.
I'd move to the next slide.
[Other language spoken]
In terms of resources and assistance to the victims of land mines and explosive remnants of war.
Unfortunately, the situation has not improved in the past year.
And in fact, many health services not only remain underfunded but are on the brink of collapse in conflict affected countries and those affected by economic crisis, including some countries which have the largest numbers of mine survivors, including the States parties, Afghanistan, Sudan, Ukraine and Yemen, but also other states not party.
And while states are endeavouring to create a more sustainable means of providing rehabilitation services by integrating into the health systems as is recommended by international organisations including the World Health Organisation, the actual resources to prop up the rehabilitation systems in health in health amongst health services is still lacking.
And livelihood support and psychological support for survivors unfortunately remained the least provided of all the services that are needed.
[Other language spoken]
Yes, so we go over to contamination and as Mark already said before, unfortunately in 2022, we have no state party that could complete clearance.
We have a total of 30 States Parties which complete the clearance since 1997 but known in 2022.
We have 20 states parties which have a deadline for clearance before or in 2025, so it's going to be interesting to see whether they can actually make it.
We have currently at least 60 states or other areas including 33 states parties that are contaminated by anti personal land mines.
We also have 10 states parties that should provide more information with regard to a possible or a confirmed contamination with improvised mines.
Compared to the previous list, we unfortunately had to add three countries to that list.
We added Mexico, Mozambique and Togo.
All three countries do give some information.
As an example, Mexico explains the situation in its Article 7 report.
However, it's not entirely clear whether these IDs and artisanal minds reported are victim activated.
What is the fusing system?
So they should provide some more information about that.
Mozambique, although being mind free since 2015, has a ****** based on the use of IDs by insurgents in the north, and there were two ID incidents reported in March 2023.
But we currently lack more information about these incidents and the devices used when it comes to Toggle.
Toggle hasn't submitted an Article 7 report since 2003.
They did not report any mined areas under the jurisdictional control.
However, we know that there is a use of improvised mines in 2022 in the border areas Tunisia and Burkina Faso.
When it comes to the extent of contamination, we have Afghanistan, Bosnia Herzegovina, Cambodia, Croatia, Ethiopia, Iraq, Turkey and Ukraine with a massive contamination.
Massive contamination means there is more than 100 square kilometres contaminated with land mines.
However, the good news is we could take one country from that list with a massive contamination, Yemen.
Yemen is now considered to have a large contamination with landmines which means between 20 and 99 square kilometres.
Yemen started a baseline survey and could correct the initially quite **** a figure of square kilometres down to about 52 square kilometres, which is partly confirmed or partly suspected being contaminated with landmines.
The baseline survey is still ongoing.
It's expected to be completed this year, later this year.
So we'll see if hopefully the extent of the contamination goes down a bit more.
When it comes to Ukraine and Ethiopia, a last word.
They are considered to have a massive contamination, but we currently do not know how big that contamination is.
We do not have exact figures.
In March 2023, in Ukraine, only 50 square kilometres had been identified using different survey methodologies.
The national authority reported in June that 160,000 square kilometres are affected by the conflict and will need survey.
In terms of the contamination, Ethiopia is a similar situation.
We simply do not have an exact estimation of the contamination.
However, it is assumed that only a minor extent of what they give us as estimation is really contaminated, but they still need to come up with a reliable survey.
[Other language spoken]
So I'm talking about the good news clearance.
What has been done?
In 2022, States Parties reported clearance of at least 219 square kilometres.
As Mark mentioned before, this is a significant increase from last year.
Also the number of anti personal mine mines destroyed, which is almost 170,000 compared to 100 seven 17,000 in 2021.
In addition, an order 200 and almost 80 square kilometres were released through survey techniques.
So through non-technical survey and through technical survey, this is equally quite a significant increase from last year.
So that's that's the good news on the clearance front front, something is done and it's it's done well of the countries that day clearance or the state parties that day clearance, Cambodia clear the most, followed by Croatia.
Turkey disposed a lot of land mines from quite a small area.
This as well a significant achievement.
And these three countries are followed by Thailand and Zimbabwe which also destroyed a lot of anti personal land mines in quite a small area of land.
We have 8 state parties that requested an extension today.
Article 5 deadline.
These extensions were requested and granted in 2022.
This concerns Afghanistan, Argentina, Ecuador, Queen Abisao, Serbia, Sudan, Thailand and Yemen.
We received an extension request in March 2023 from Ukraine.
They request a 10 year extension to their current deadline.
This is currently discussed and will be further discussed during the Member State meeting in the following week.
So this extension request is not granted yet.
Risk education Of the 33 state parties with clearance obligations, 28 reported risk education activities in 2022.
However, only ten of these countries provided as well disaggregated beneficiary data and really sufficient information about what has been done throughout 2022.
In addition to these countries, we know as well that Burkina Faso and Molly provided risk education activities.
Both countries are known to be contaminated with improvised minds, so it's good to see that they engaged in risk education as well.
Of the 8 state parties that requested an Article 5 extension request in 2022, only two will now be so.
And Sudan provided detailed plans for risk education.
And this is a general observation for 2022 that there is still a lack of provided detailed information.
There's also still a room for improvement when it comes to systematic planning, budgeting and coordination of risk education activities if we compare it with with clearance and survey activities.
So certainly most of the state parties could improve and give more detailed and exact figures about what they do and plan to do, talking about the target groups and similarly the the groups most at risk.
[Other language spoken]
It has been children in the past, it still is children.
They made-up for 47% of all beneficiaries of risk education activities, rightly so, because they are the most vulnerable.
Delivery methods for risk education is not covered on that slide simply because there are no big changes compared to previous years.
A wide range of delivery methods is used, depending on the context, on circumstances and what is suitable.
What we can see is certainly a trend to more integration into governmental structures, more integration into societal structures.
So by using volunteer networks, by engaging, yeah, mainly, mainly volunteers and community networks.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Last but not least, support for mine action in 2022.
Approximately 930.5 million U.S.
dollars were provided for mine action in support for mine action in 2022.
This is a 52% increase from support provided in 2021.
So that's the good news.
The maturity, around 800 million was provided by 35 international donors, of which actually 14 increased their funding compared to the previous years.
The United States and the European Union increased A contribution most significantly of all the states that increase the funding, unfortunately also $16.00 degrees funding, most significantly New Zealand, the UK, Denmark, Sweden and Australia.
The second bullet point is also an important point to mention.
[Other language spoken]
The recipient list over the last few years has been, has remained pretty much the same or it's even unchanged, although Ukraine clearly moved on top of the list of recipients for international funding, not only but also for mine action.
And all the remark we unfortunately need to repeat is that international support for victim assistance only represented about 5% of international support.
As I said, this is similar to previous years.
So most of the money goes into clearance activities, which is of course a very important activity.
But unfortunately victim assistance and also risk education suffers from that and just gets a small amount of the funding.
And the last remark we can make is as well that the funding predominantly goes to UN agencies or to international non government organisations and to a lesser extent also to government authorities or government institutions.
But only about 1% of the international support goes actually to national small non profit organisations.
And that was the last one from my side.
Thank you, Right.
Thank you all for those presentations.
We don't have much time left, so I will see.
There's some questions online and in the room, the woman in front, the woman behind, and then we have Yuri online as well, please.
Sorry about that.
[Other language spoken]
It's Christiana with the German press agency.
I, If I understand correctly, Israel is not a state party to the treaty.
Do you know anything about their activities in terms of land mines?
Are you afraid that this might be a weapon that might be used in the latest conflict?
[Other language spoken]
Thank you for your question.
We know that in the past Israel has produced, is acquired, produced and used, destroyed stockpiles, destroyed minefields.
We in the context of the current conflict, we have no information.
It's access is impossible, as you can imagine.
And we also need to recognise that Israel has stopped production, it has stopped export, it hasn't used mines in a very long time.
But we have no indication either on the Lebanese border area or in the South, in Gaza, that anti personnel mines are being used.
Sorry, one more question in the room and then we'll go online.
[Other language spoken]
Anya's Pedro journalist from AFP here in Geneva.
You mentioned that Ukraine has requested an extension.
I would like to to ask you if you could clarify, is it, is it an extension for demining what is on the ground or for destroying their stocks?
And if you could better explain when the decision will be taken and by whom exactly?
And what would be the consequences if the country didn't receive this extension?
[Other language spoken]
So the requested extension concerns clearance and the current discussion going on with that extension request is that actually it's very difficult to assume when everything is going to be cleared if not even a survey is done.
So it is discussed whether it would be wiser to have an extension to get a proper survey done based on which a plan can be made made for the demining and then yeah, they can request a realistic timeline to do the clearance.
With regards to when this is going to be discussed next week, Tom, are do you have it in mind?
So maybe you can quickly give that information in more detail.
Right.
So the 21st meeting of States Parties of the Mind and Convention is next week.
The extension will be presented on the first day by Ukraine and that will give the week to sort of have any back and forth.
The decision will be taken on the final day.
Basically the the analysis has already been made and it's online on the Mindbend Treaty website.
And so normally what a state asks for, it receives.
Even though as ICBL, we've been encouraging states to grant Ukraine to request a shorter period of time to end the conflict and then do the survey that Katrina was mentioning and then ask for the the realistic amount of time that that they will need.
OK, yes, yes, sorry, but I still didn't understand who will take the decision.
Is it a country?
[Other language spoken]
OK, So the meeting of states parties itself takes the decision.
The states parties take the decision.
So it will be at the meeting and it will be registered as a meeting of the states parties where the extension is given.
They've never not given a granted a request and I see no reason that it won't be granted.
So that would be next Friday.
Usually it doesn't need a vote, it's just by consensus in the room.
OK online we've had a hand for a long time.
[Other language spoken]
Yes, thank you for taking my question and really sad that we don't have a lot of time on this important topic to talk.
I have a lot of questions so I don't know if I can ask them all.
I will start with the most important.
The USA this year transferred large, large countries of cluster ammunitions to Ukraine.
These deliveries went through countries such as Germany and Poland, which are officially party to Ottawa Convention.
Is this a step back?
Is this a violation of the treaties because the fact that they get cluster and landmine ammunitions in their country to to send them to Ukraine?
Are you clearly calling on Ukraine and the USA to stop this use of end deliveries?
You are talking in your report about ISUM in 2022, but the landmine Lipstock is the name of the landmine is really used in Dundas and especially in the city of Donetsk.
We have a lot of videos from civilians there that are showing Lipstock in the town.
Did you see evidence of that?
And my last question, in June this year, Ukraine indicated that it did not violate the Ottawa Convention during the annual meeting that was taking place.
So this statement was false after what you told about issue at least.
[Other language spoken]
I guess I get all those.
Please excuse me if I need to refresh my memory on the all three of those questions.
Yes, we did notice the use of PFM mines, or at least allegations of it in Donetsk at various times.
We've also seen videos of people picking up live PFM mines regardless of where they are.
We have people shooting at them, we have people living with them in their immediate environment so they take self help on.
To clarify on the cluster munitions landmines question, those are two separate treaties with two different memberships.
For example, Germany is a member of both treaties but Poland isn't.
We're here discussing anti personnel mines this time so we're not directly addressing cluster munitions.
That was done over the summer and the cluster munition monitor we have commented on the transfer of cluster munitions but I'd rather leave.
I'd rather focus on anti personnel minds.
And did I forget one of the three there?
Anyone?
I think we need to move to the next question in any case, sorry about that, but you can feel free to get in touch monitor at ICBL, cmc.org and we can arrange for interviews.
The next question I think was from Lisa Shlain from Voice of America.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
I have going to pepper you with a few questions as well.
At first, I'd I'd like to know whether Russia used landmines before its invasion of Ukraine or whether this is the first and most recent use of landmines by Russia.
Let let's see on on Myanmar, I assume they've been using landmines since 1999.
Is that what you said?
So this is a consistent use, a new use last year, but it's been going on for a number of years.
Is that right?
And how many casualties occurred as a consequence of Ukraine's use of land mines in the city of Isiom?
And you say that investigations are going on in regard to its use.
Do you have any more information of that and whether this is was really a very serious abrogation of the treaty on the part of Ukraine?
And As for that, if a, if a country breaks the treaty in any way, are there sanctions?
I'm almost getting to the end and I'm I'm switching now to the African continent.
Is there active use of land mines by African states?
Specifically?
You mentioned Ethiopia, but it wasn't clear about that whether Ethiopia used land mines in during the Tigraya conflict.
Has this stopped and where do you see the most problems?
Yeah, in regard to Africa, is it the contamination which has built up over many years or you do mention that there are 8 states, Sahelian states that are involved with landmines.
Are they using it now?
Are non state parties using it?
If you could kind of flesh out this whole area for me, I'd appreciate that.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you for your question.
I'll take most of that.
[Other language spoken]
The first question was on use by Russia.
The use of land mines in Ukraine started in 2014 when Luhansk and Donetsk were and were contested land mines started appearing in the area, in the region.
Russia has made extensive use of land mines in places like Afghanistan, Chechnya.
I think they supplied landlines to about 35 to 38 different countries over the years.
But a lot of that is history.
Another factor we're noticing is wherever Wagner goes, land mines go.
That's, we don't think that's a coincidence, particularly with Libya where several new types of Russian produced land mines were found and documented there and including a tablet found by the BBC that was being used to record the locations of the mines in Russian.
[Other language spoken]
What was the second Myanmar?
[Other language spoken]
Yes, they've been on our list since 1999, but the order of magnitude and scope of the contamination and the use is much different now.
It's just bigger, you have more used by the government forces and more used by various non state armed groups.
So it's it's a lingering, festering problem that just got a lot worse in the past reporting period.
[Other language spoken]
I've forgotten the question there.
The situation we have in the Lake Chad Basin, Sahil, Northwest Africa, we see reports of someone being blown up by a mine in the press and sometimes it's very short and we are, we have to look into a deeper.
Sometimes we could identify the type of munition that caused the casualty.
Most of the times we can't.
So that's why Lawrence Job is very complex explaining that the true numbers are going to be different in this area of the world.
As I said earlier, we received these reports, but we're not able to systematically document that a minefield was put in by government X on date Y.
Instead we get person blown up by mine.
And if there's more detail than that, we can report it.
And Lauren, the rest of that is to you.
[Other language spoken]
Well, regarding civilian casualties of PFM mines or butterfly mines in Izium, early Human Rights Watch investigations had interviews with medical facilities and personnel who identified around 50 casualties of any personal mines accord.
According to them, there were many with amputations of the lower limbs which are readily identified with this kind of mine, which sort of sits on the ground and basically has like a, it's like looks like a squishy cord toy that once stepped on causes quite a significant blast.
And in conflict data analysis of conflict casualties, I think that about 30 casualties of specifically that mine are readily identifiable.
Of course, that doesn't mean that that's all the casualties that there were.
All those casualties were civilian casualties and it wasn't reported whether there were military casualties from those mines.
And in general, reporting on military casualties in the conflict overall is very difficult to assess ascertain access.
It's just not there.
[Other language spoken]
Just to reiterate what Mark said and mine use and casualties in Sahel Lake, Chad Basin region, there's a lot of types of improvised explosive devices.
They're certainly that some of them could be activated by a person or vehicle.
It's very difficult to work out what the fusing mechanism is and if the device could be activated by the presence or proximity sometimes of a person.
Because some of the them have strange and complicated put together dead nation devices that include different different things that they can make get set off.
They might be intended to take out a vehicle or a convoy, but could be easily set off by a child.
And and that makes actually identifying confirming the device to be any personal by nature difficult.
Look, Katrina, if you want to add on the contamination.
[Other language spoken]
So I'm not sure if we have time for one question, but I'll press our luck.
And that would be for Jeremy from Radio France.
[Other language spoken]
A quick one going back to cluster ammunition as well.
I'd like to know on Ukraine, do you manage to disaggregate the numbers of, of, of casualties between the cluster ammunitions, the landmines, the remnants of war?
You talked about a massive contamination of Ukraine, I think was the word that was used a couple of months ago for the cluster ammunition report.
So do you manage to disaggregate cluster ammunition landmine, which are the the, the biggest issue in, in Ukraine?
[Other language spoken]
Yeah, we, we did manage to disaggregate some cluster mission casualties, which we reported in the cluster mission monitor report and in the landmine monitor report, which includes casualties from all forms of landmines and unexploded ordnance that we could identify and disaggregate.
But in fact, for Ukraine, the situation remains the same, that it's clearly massively underreported in terms of casualties and defined areas of contamination.
And the data that is being collected and presented tends to be just aggregate.
It's mine ERW casualties and then from amongst that using other various sources to try and work out who is being affected by what particular item of explosive ordinance.
But this is almost always the case in the middle of an intensive conflict.
And for example, in Syria, it was maybe 2, two years, two or three years after the initial conflict that information really started to come in and the numbers went up significantly by the hundreds.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
I think we we need to wrap up because there's another conference coming.
Thank you all so much for being here, for your interest in this issue, for covering it.
As you can see, the report is online now, it's on the website themonitor.org.
And we will also be uploading little by little the the country profiles which have a lot more detail about each specific country by thematic area.
So thank you again to you Nadir for hosting.
I don't know if you thank you so much, a few brief words from from our site, but on behalf of Unity, I also wish to thank the ICBLCMC, you Tamar, the Director, as well as the distinguished speakers and and experts for sharing with us the research findings, the insights, bad news, also some good news as you've mentioned initially and of course the audience with us for your engagement and echo was what Tamar has mentioned.
Please do refer to this resource, make use of it and support us in disseminating it and it's finding the Landmine Monitor with that from our side.
Thank you once again and wishing you an excellent continuation of the day.
[Other language spoken]