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(Beirut) – Houthi rebels and others Yemen In areas where hostilities have ceased, mines continue to kill and injure civilians and prevent farmers from accessing their land, Human Rights Watch said today. Yemeni law and the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty prohibit the use of anti-personnel mines under all circumstances.
“For years the Houthis have flouted the ban on landmines, and these weapons have killed and injured people indiscriminately, with Yemeni civilians paying the price,” he said. Nicu JafagnaYemen and Bahrain researcher at Human Rights Watch. “There is an urgent need to scale up mine clearance efforts to save lives, prevent unnecessary suffering, and ensure people can safely return to their homes and livelihoods.”
Uncleared mines have had a devastating impact on residents of Shaqb, a village in the Sabir Mawadim district on the mountainous outskirts of Taiz city. According to the village’s leaders, 28 of the several thousand residents of the village (a census has not been conducted since 2004) were injured and six died in the years following the siege of Taiz and its surrounding areas in 2015.
Human Rights Watch researchers visited Shagbu village in April 2024 and interviewed seven residents, including four mine survivors, two people whose family members were killed by mines, and community leaders in Shagbu village. All four survivors have permanent disabilities from their injuries. All of the people interviewed had been displaced from their hometowns to nearby villages.
Human Rights Watch also interviewed officials from two national mine action coordination bodies, the Yemen Implementation Mine Action Centre (YEMAC) and the Yemen Mine Action Coordination Centre (YMAC), and a member of Yemen’s National Human Rights Committee who has documented mine use in the region.
Shaqab is located in a valley between two peaks, one controlled by the internationally recognized Yemeni government (Mount Mazar) and the other by the Houthi armed forces (Mount Salihin), which have been adversaries in the Yemeni conflict since 2014. Although Shaqab is on the front line, most of the heavy fighting stopped several years ago, but snipers remain in the area and occasionally shoot at civilians, sometimes killing them. Most recently on March 23, residents said a Houthi sniper shot and wounded a child returning home from school.
Most of Shaqb’s residents are farmers or herders who were forced to leave their homes in the early stages of the conflict. According to community leaders in Shaqb, more than 257 families have been displaced. As fighting has decreased over the past few years, many residents who have tried to return to their homes, cultivate their fields or herd their livestock have been killed or seriously injured by anti-personnel mines, and their livestock have also been killed. Many of the injured have been left with permanent disabilities.
Several residents said that starting in 2018, the Houthis began entering their land at night to plant mines in and around their homes and farmland. According to mine clearance organizations, the town of Shaqqab is contaminated with a large number of anti-personnel mines.
One man interviewed said he was displaced by fighting in 2016. In August 2022, after the fighting subsided, he returned home to get some wheat stored at his home. He stepped on a yellow bottle in front of the front door and it exploded. He lost several fingers in the blast and suffered severe injuries to his legs, other body parts and eyes, leaving him with permanent disabilities and scars.
Landmines also make it more difficult for villagers to feed themselves and maintain an income. According to the World Food Program, as of February 2024, 64% of the population in Taiz governorate Insufficient foodTaiz governorate is one of four Yemeni governorates facing a “high and worsening risk” of food insecurity.
One woman interviewed said her father was killed by a landmine when he returned to his farm in February 2021. She said that despite the farm being on the front line, her father and other agricultural workers continued to go there to farm because it was their source of income and there were “only snipers” in the area. “He used to go to the valley every day to farm and had no idea there were mines there,” she said.
In June 2022, 35-year-old Abdullah lost both his legs in a landmine explosion while taking his goats to graze at a local farm. “I used to go to the same farm every two or three days to feed the goats,” he said. “That was my land and no one lived there. My life became very difficult after the accident. I used to work as a driver and other jobs, but now I don’t work anymore and just stay at home.” Disabled people in Yemen Facing obstacles Access to quality health care, education, and employment opportunities.
One child interviewed said a landmine killed his parents in 2022. His mother was killed in front of her home in February 2022. A month later, his father was killed while working on his land. “He worked on his land every day,” the boy said. “Then one morning, he went into his land to work like he always did, and he was killed.”
The use of landmines has also exacerbated extreme food insecurity. “We used to have farmland where we grew qat (and vegetables for our own consumption) and sold them to get the money we needed to meet our needs and expenses,” the first man said. “But now, these frontline lands are contaminated, so we can’t go there anymore. Those who have gone to these lands and[have been seriously injured or killed by mines]have been forced to do so because their needs were so dire and the situation they were in was so bad.”
The 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, to which 164 countries have joined, prohibits the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of anti-personnel mines and requires countries to clear them and provide assistance to victims. Anti-personnel mines are banned in all circumstances because they are indiscriminate weapons that cannot distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Yemen ratified the treaty on September 1, 1998, committing itself not to use anti-personnel mines under any circumstances and to prevent and suppress activities prohibited by the treaty. Reported Announced to the Secretary-General of the United Nations that it had destroyed its stockpile of anti-personnel mines in accordance with the requirements of the Mine Ban Treaty.
Human Rights Watch has been monitoring Yemen’s policies and practices regarding anti-personnel mines since 1999 and has Record Delve into countless events Used by Houthi forces Anti-personnel mines in Taiz and other governorates, including 2015, 2016, 2017and 2019. Houthi authorities Informed Human Rights Watch In April 2017, they deemed the treaty binding. In addition to the Mine Ban Treaty’s prohibition on the use of landmines, individuals responsible for using prohibited weapons or conducting indiscriminate attacks may be subject to Indicted for war crimes.
this Landmine Monitoring Initiative Depend on International Campaign to Ban Landmines Reported In 2022, at least 582 people were killed or injured in Yemen by mines or other explosive remnants of war, up from 528 in 2021.
Shakib’s location on the front line presents a security challenge for mine-clearing organizations because of occasional sniper fire, but Human Rights Watch also interviewed people who are no longer on the front line but are still displaced by the continued presence of mines.
More international assistance is urgently needed to equip and assist deminers to systematically survey and clear mines and explosive remnants of war in Yemen, Human Rights Watch said. The Yemeni government, the Houthis, who de facto control much of Yemen, and international agencies should provide adequate compensation, assistance, support, and employment opportunities to the injured, the families of the dead and wounded, and other mine victims in Yemen. Assistance should include medical care, including reconstructive surgery and psychosocial support, prosthetics and other assistive devices where appropriate, and ongoing rehabilitation where necessary.
Human Rights Watch is International Campaign to Ban Landmines, Won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the Mine Ban Treaty.
“The devastating impact of mines in Yemen will not end unless there is a massive mobilization to remove and destroy them,” Jafarnia said. “The Yemeni people are facing catastrophic levels of hunger and desperately need access to essential agricultural and grazing lands, which are often contaminated by mines.”
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