Humanitarian Demining

Landmine quick facts

There are up to 110 million landmines in the ground.
There are about 215 million landmines stockpiled throughout the world.
More than 80 countries are affected by landmines.
It is estimated that more than 20,000 civilians are killed or injured each year.
It costs $3 - $30 to purchase an antipersonnel mine, but it costs up to $1000 to remove one.
Mines can remain active for 50 years.

Terms and definitions

Mine action describes all those capabilities including humanitarian demining, stockpile destruction, mine awareness, victim assistance and advocacy, which, together, aim to reduce the wider economic impact of landmine contamination.
Humanitarian demining refers to those functions, activities and tasks, which result in the survey, marking and clearance of contaminated land, and the return of safe land to the communities.

Impact of landmines

Besides the human tragedies resulting from landmine accidents, there are numerous economic implications. The suspicion of a landmine suffices to make a minefield. Thus, landmines hinder economic and infrastructure development, prevent the return of refugees, and increase the dependence of the contaminated countries on international aid.

Current demining techniques

The removal and destruction of landmines involves a great deal of effort, time, and high risk, which result in high clearance costs. Many factors have to be considered such as soil, weather, topology, and type of contamination. Even though a large amount of money is spent on research and development (R&D) for mechanical demining equipment every year, the current mechanical demining technologies have still drawbacks in terms of weight, safety, price and reliability.

Reliability is the most important factor in humanitarian mine clearance and the UN standard for humanitarian demining calls for a clearance rate of 99.6%. Mine clearance itself can be accomplished through different methods with varying levels of technology. Clearance operations make use of three main methods:

Manual clearance relies on trained deminers using metal detectors and long thin prodders to locate the mines, which are then destroyed by controlled explosion. However, only about one in every 1000 signals detected belongs to a mine or UXO because the ground being cleared is saturated with metal fragment, shrapnel and cans. Additionally, about 30% of all antipersonnel landmines deployed today are metal free. This method requires the deminer to enter the mine field, which makes the task extremely dangerous. However, manual clearance – being the most laborious and hazardous method – is currently also the most reliable one.

: Manual mine clearance

Mine detection dogs (MDDs), which detect the presence of explosives in the ground by smell. Dogs are used in combination with manual deminers. Their sensitivity to explosives is considered to be 10,000 times higher than that of a man-made detector. Since they do not respond to metal but to explosives they eliminate much of the shortcomings of manual detection techniques. Mine detection dogs can work in almost all types of terrain and are easy to transport. However, they can only work a couple of hours each day and the can be easily disturbed by rain or strong wind. In areas with dense landmine contamination they tend to be unreliable.

: Mine clearance with mine detection dogs

Mechanical mine clearing systems using machinery, including flails, rollers, vegetation cutters and excavators, often attached to armoured bulldozers or tractors, to detonate, destroy or isolate the mines. Demining machines still have to be fully accepted among deminers as a tool of equal reliability to the two traditional ‘mainstays’ of mine clearance: manual deminers and MDDs. Many of the current demining machines are still considered highly expensive, heavy and unreliable. At present, the machines’ operations are usually confined to the reduction of risk by the removal of vegetation and tripwire-operated mines and some mine reduction as part of area reduction. They are mostly part of an integrated manual-mechanical procedure. If the machines really shall bring the demanded ‘jump’ in productivity, machines need to be accepted as stand-alone solutions.

A study by GICHD, published in May 2004, shows that there are machines that actually can be regarded as stand-alone mine clearance devices and that “machines are underused in demining, in part due to a lack of understanding by the mine clearance community of their most suitable roles and applications, in particularly of recent improvements in design.”

Difficult ground and terrain are among the most limiting factors in the development of mechanical assets (which is also true for MDDs and manual demining).

To sum it up: the mechanical approach is faster and safer for deminers, but lack of understanding and underuse means it hasn’t yet brought the breakthrough the demining community is anxiously waiting for.

In addition to these standard methods, various ‘unconventional approaches’ are being tested. In Africa, rats are being trained to detect mines as they have an even more sensitive scent than dogs. The same applies for foraging bees, which are being tested in the US. Also pigs are considered to be better ‘sniffers’ than dogs and are considered for mine detection. Tests are also conducted with genetically engineered bacteria or even cress.

Besides these ‘natural approaches’, intensive research is carried out in the field of multi-technology systems. These techniques include – among others – laser, infrared, satellite, and remote robot systems. However, all of these unconventional approaches are in the stage of testing and none of these methods will be available shortly. A future success of these techniques is not foreseeable.

: Mechanical mine clearance

Taking into consideration all the facts mentioned above, there is a growing census that a more universal application of mechanical demining technology can enable mine clearance (and other elements of mine action) to be conducted more effectively, cheaply, quickly, and with less risk.