The use of antipersonnel land mines continues to cause a large number of casualties despite the devices being banned by most countries, a new report by a group of organizations looking at the issue said, adding that civilians, many of them children, bear the brunt of the damage, sometimes long after a conflict has ended.
The Landmine Monitor 2023 was released on November 14 in Geneva by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, a global coalition of nongovernmental organizations chaired by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
It said Russia has continued to use land mines extensively in its illegal and unprovoked war in Ukraine, a country that is a signatory of the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, commonly known as the Mine Ban Treaty.
The continued use of land mines by Russia in Ukraine marked an unprecedented situation in which a state that is not a signatory of the treaty is using the weapon on the territory of a treaty member, the report said.
It said that at least 4,710 new casualties were recorded in 51 countries in 2022, including 1,661 deaths, out of which 85 percent were civilians -- half of them children.
Ukraine recorded the second-largest number of casualties -- 608 -- after Syria, which is not a signatory of the treaty and registered 834 casualties in 2022.
Russia heavily mined its front line in Ukraine in expectation of Ukraine's counteroffensive that started in late spring this year. According to estimates, as much as 174,000 square kilometers have been mined mostly in the east, making Ukraine the most mined country in the world.
It is estimated that it could take decades after the end of the conflict to demine the whole territory of Ukraine.
The report says there is "credible information" that Ukraine, which joined the treaty in 1999, used land mines in violation of the treaty in and around Izyum in the eastern region of Kharkiv during 2022, when the city was under Russian occupation.
In November last year, Ukraine's Deputy Defense Minister Oleksandr Polishchuk responded to an HRW request to confirm evidence that showed Ukraine's use of land mines that Kyiv cannot comment on the types of armaments it uses "before the end of the war and the restoration of our sovereignty and territorial integrity."
Polishchuk added in his response letter that Ukraine remains "a reliable member of the international community, and it fully commits to all international obligations in the sphere of mine usage. This includes the nonuse of antipersonnel mines in the war."
The 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, also known as the Ottawa Convention, came into force on March 1, 1999, and was signed by 164 countries including all NATO members with the exception of the United States. U.S. President Joe Biden in June last year set the goal of ultimately joining the treaty.
"All countries that have not banned antipersonnel mines should help put an end to the casualties and suffering caused by these indiscriminate weapons," said HRW's Mark Hiznay, an editor of the Landmine Monitor 2023.
"Only through universal adherence can the Mine Ban Treaty achieve its goal of a world without antipersonnel mines," he added.