Stop Syria using landmines against its own people

Reports reveal that Syria is planting landmines along parts of its border with Lebanon and Turkey as refugees stream out of the country to escape the violent crackdown on anti-government protests.

The Nobel Peace Prize winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) is calling on all governments to protest Syria’s use of antipersonnel landmines, a weapon banned by the majority of the world due to its devastating humanitarian impact on civilians.


The call was issued following confirmation by eye-witnesses that the Syrian Army has been laying landmines along its borders.


Kasia Derlicka, ICBL director told Linda Bordoni that the organization is “outraged to see Syria using antipersonnel mines against its own people, adding to the already dire humanitarian crisis Syrian civilians are facing”.


She said the organization was already receiving reports of mine-laying last year that it had not been able to verify, but in recent days and weeks these reports have been confirmed by eyewitness. Unfortunately, she says, there have already been casualties.


Derlicka says “we are outraged and very deeply disturbed because there is no justification to use antipersonnel landmines in today’s world, by anyone and in any circumstance”.


She confirms that the mines are being laid along the most popular routes used by Syrian civilians to flee the country and seek refuge in Lebanon. In addition – she reveals – another reason for laying the mines is to prevent the smuggling of weapons into the country.


She says the ICBL is calling on the international community, on all governments, and especially on UN Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, to speak out against this latest atrocity and to put strong pressure on Syria to stop using the mines and to ensure removal and destruction of all the mines planted to prevent further casualties.


She explains “that 80% of the world has banned landmines: they are considered to be illegal, indiscriminate weapons. They are weapons that cannot tell the difference between the foot of a child or a soldier, and that’s why there is no place for mines being used in today’s world”.


Furthermore Derlicka explains, “One particular horrible element regarding landmines is that they don’t only kill and maim during the time of conflict, but years, decades to come after the conflict is over”.


Derlicka says the mines being used in Syria have been identified as PMN-2 antipersonnel mines from the former Soviet Union. She says she is not aware that Syria produces antipersonnel mines, but it has a stock from the former Soviet Union.

She says the countries that today still produce these weapons include China, India, Pakistan, Israel. And Derlicka adds that the export of landmines, thanks to the stigma attached to them and to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, has dropped immensely and there is no tangible evidence of the export of antipersonnel mines at presence.


Derlicka says the ICBL’s call to governments was immediately well received. She says the organization’s network is working hard to ask all governments to put pressure on Syria and there is a global mobilization to raise the issue urgently.


She says there has been excellent media coverage of the issue over the last few days, and says it is clear that there is so much bad news coming out of Syria, this particular perspective is just “one of many, however” she stresses “this issue is extremely unacceptable” In fact: it is not just during this conflict we will have this problem. “Once mines are planted they will continue killing, maiming and threatening people from using the land, from leading normal lives, for decades to come”.


Derlicka also says that she has seen that in the past 12 months, the Arab Spring has led to the increase in use of mines. Last year, she says, “we witnessed new mine use in Libya under the Gaddafi forces, also in Israel along the border with Syria, and there is ongoing use in Myanmar”.

Listen to the full interview…