Since the adoption of the 1997 Ottawa Convention, 164 states have banned the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines. Russia, which has the world’s largest stockpile of this type of weapon, has not ratified the treaty. In the midst of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian authorities are accusing their neighbor of using these mines, which have remained active for years, against civilians.
Thirteen days after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the number of civilian casualties in the country continues to rise. In the Chernihiv region, a strategic city 150 kilometers north of Kyiv, an anti-personnel landmine killed three adults and three children, Verkhovna Rada human rights ombudsman Lyudmila Denisova said on Tuesday.
For the first time since the beginning of the war, on February 24, the Ukrainian authorities officially mention the people who died from such mines. “Anti-personnel mines laid by the army of the Russian Federation in the Chernihiv region are prohibited by international law,” Lyudmila Denisova emphasized, adding that “the use of this type of weapon against civilians is a crime against humanity.”
Weapons banned by many states, allowed by Russia
Why is the use of a weapon type so frowned upon? In 1997, the Ottawa Convention was concluded, officially called the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction. The Convention, which therefore prohibits signatory countries from possessing anti-personnel landmines, also requires them to destroy stockpiles and already laid mines. It is open to everyone and currently has 164 signatories.
According to a 2021 Landmine Monitor report prepared by the Cluster Munitions Coalition (CMC), Russia currently has the largest stockpile of anti-personnel mines in the world, at 26.5 million. Far ahead of other producing countries such as the US (3 million) or China (less than 5 million). These major producing countries have not acceded to the Ottawa Convention, which “contributes to the narrowing of its scope,” the Foreign Office emphasizes.
Landmine casualties on the rise
Moreover, the number of victims of anti-personnel mines in the world remains high and even increasing. However, according to the Landmine Observatory, anti-personnel mines killed 5,853 people in 2019 and 7,073 in 2020, up 21%.
Of this number, 2942 people died, 4561 were injured, the condition of another 20 is not specified. 80% of the victims in 2020 are civilians. Of those whose ages have been revealed, half are children. Also in 2020, eight countries of the world recorded more than 100 victims from this type of weapon: Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Colombia, Iraq, Mali, Nigeria, Yemen and Ukraine. In 2020, in Ukraine – which also has not ratified the Ottawa Convention – land mines killed 277 people, most in the separatist territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the east of the country that broke away after Russia annexed Crimea.
According to the Foreign Office, it is estimated that “several tens of millions of anti-personnel mines will be buried and active in about sixty countries, sometimes very long after the armed conflicts that give rise to them have ended.”
Significant body damage
If anti-personnel mines are regularly released by NGOs, it is because of the significant damage they cause to victims. Placed on the ground or slightly underground, the devices are designed “to explode by the presence, proximity or contact of a person and are intended to incapacitate, injure or kill one or more persons,” the Ottawa Convention emphasizes.
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), “Wounds caused by anti-personnel mines are particularly painful and are considered among the most difficult to treat by military surgeons. Often, when a person steps on an anti-personnel mine buried in the ground, the explosion tears off a leg, or even both, and throws dirt, grass, gravel, fragments of metal and plastic from the mine body, pieces of shoes and fragments of bones into the muscles and lower parts of the body of the victim ” – clarifies the NGO.
When handled, machines can also cause serious damage to the hands and upper body. Survivors often have to “amputate legs, undergo multiple surgeries and undergo lengthy physical rehabilitation,” the ICRC adds. In addition to the severe physical effects, the psychological effects last for years.
“These weapons indiscriminately kill, maim and injure soldiers and civilians indiscriminately, often even after hostilities have ended,” Quai d’Orsay sums up.
Cluster munitions, another threat to civilians used by Russia
In recent days, in the context of the Russian invasion, there has been a lot of talk about another type of weapon that could eventually turn into an anti-personnel mine: cluster bombs. Since February 24, non-governmental organizations have condemned the use of their explosives by Russian troops on several occasions.
According to Amnesty International, on February 25, these bombs hit a kindergarten where civilians were hiding in Akhtyrka in northeastern Ukraine. Three civilians were killed, including a child, and another child was injured. The NGO relies on drone footage of the scene showing cluster munitions hit at least seven locations in or around the building, as well as photographs and videos provided by a local source.
On Friday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) sounded the alarm after several attacks on Kharkiv, the country’s second city. According to HRW, Russian troops used these weapons “in at least three residential areas of Kharkiv.”
Their use is prohibited by the Convention on Cluster Munitions, known as the “Oslo Convention”, adopted in 2008 by more than a hundred states. Like the Ottawa Convention, Russia has not signed it.
These cluster bombs (BASMs) consist of a shell-like container containing smaller explosive projectiles called “submunitions”. Very inaccurate, they can hit huge numbers of civilians.
Cluster munitions disperse many small munitions over a very large area. Some remain unexploded and may kill years later. As well as anti-personnel mines.