Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, late on Nov. 6 approved in first reading a draft law on landmine sweeping, taking a step to remove the immense contamination of explosives in the war zone of Donbas. The bill was effectively supported by 240 lawmakers, more than the 226 simple majority that was needed.
According to the authors, the primary aim is to eventually provide a clear legal basis of minesweeping activities, including for those carried out by various humanitarian organizations, and to synchronize Ukraine’s governmental regulation with common international standards in this field.
Although Russia’s war against Ukraine has been going on for nearly five years, the lack of a legal framework still prevents the systematic landmine clearance in embattled areas along the 400-kilometer frontline, the bill reads.
Ukraine is among worst affected nations in the world by landmines.
“According to an annual report Landmine Monitor in 2016, Ukraine is ranked fifth after Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, and Syria in terms of the number of victims,” the bill’s explanatory note reads. “Every month, the death toll (caused by landmines) exceeds the number of those suffering from the open hostilities… Landmine blasts, as well as unexploded ordnance and munitions, were the most common reason of the death of children in 2017, constituting approximately third part of all registered incidents, as result of which many children were disabled for life.”
Other sources provided even more horrifying figures.
As claimed in a 2016 report published by the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Ukraine was ranked the world’s worst affected nation in terms of death rate from anti-vehicle mines detonations, ahead of both Afghanistan and Syria.
According to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, 482 persons have been killed — including 21 children — by mines while another at least 1,376 people have been injured landmines and shells since the outbreak of Russia’s war in the Donbas in April 2014.
“The total area of eastern Ukraine’s territories demanding landmine clearance constitutes approximately 7,000 square kilometers with the population of 1.5 million, whereas one exploded shell can kill up to 10 people,” the bill notes. “15,000 square kilometers of uncontrolled territories are contaminated too, and the administrative border with (Russian-occupied Crimea) is also mined.”
In general, some 250,000 children living in eastern Ukraine are under threat, according to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). The Hazardous Area Life-support Organization (the HALO Trust), a British-American charity, believes that the lives of as many as 500,000 persons in the Ukrainian-controlled area of Donbas were affected by landmines and projectiles.
The widespread remnants of unexploded ordnance jeopardize vital communications and transport, farming, basic economic activities, and humanitarian supplies in Donbas. Many of former internally displaced persons are exposed to grave danger as they forcedly return back to their homes in near-frontline unsecured areas, the document reads.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government lacks technical and human resources, as well as of appropriate modern equipment, to perform effective minesweeping in Donbas. It also does not have any approved national standards of regulation in the field of landmine clearance, which is why many of poorly defused areas in the war zone are falsely reported as safe, according to the bill.
Ukraine still does not even have a universal national database of unexploded ordnance and detonation incidents, therefore there are no procedures of granting an appropriate status to affected persons or providing aid and compensation.
The presented draft bill aims to submit these defects.
In particular, the document obligates the Cabinet of Ministers to organize a special national agency that is meant to control and coordinate all minesweeping activities in the country and also issue 5-years-long accreditations to mine lifting operators willing to work in Donbas.
Besides, the lawmakers propose to alter national legislation on insurance to enforce accurate regulation of life insurance for specialists engaged in these activities.
In many ways, the authors noted, the new legal framework for Ukraine was developed upon the experience of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which had also been badly affected by the landmines and explosives contamination following the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
