landmines

Peace negotiators are anxious to see long-promised mine clearance activities get underway so that refugee resettlement and development can move forward. The head of the Union-level Joint Ceasefire Monitoring Committee called on the public to urge their local officials to make good on pledges to clear the unexploded ordinance. “In my opinion, they [the state-level Joint Ceasefire Monitoring Committees] need…

A displaced villager from the Mae Tha Wor area of Hlaingbwe Township, Karen State stepped on a landmine as he and other villagers returned to their village to check their plantations on January 31. Saw Ophar Ngah, a villager from Htee Noh Hta village in Mae Tha Wor area had to have his right leg amputated below knee. Saw Ophar…

The International Day of Persons with Disability was celebrated for the first time in honor of Karen villagers and soldiers who lost limbs during Burma’s civil war. The ceremony was held at Maw Per Kho village, Hlaing Bwe Township of Pa-an District. Saw Nay Kaw, an organizer of the event from the Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN) told…

A Burma Army officer, two soldiers from both the Burma Army and its militia, the Border Guard Force, were killed by blast mines in the recent conflict area near Kyone Htaw Waterfall, Mae Tha Wor, Karen State, on November 22, 2016. The mine fatalities happened after months of intense fighting between the breakaway Democratic Kayin Buddhist Army (DKBA) and a…

Three people were wounded when a landmine exploded as they were sightseeing in Northern Burma on Tuesday 26 April. The three people were two German tourists and their local guide. The area where the explosion took place is close to where the Burma Army is fighting with an ethnic Shan armed group. AFP reported that the three injured people were…

Across Myanmar landmines pose a daily threat of death and disability, but five years after the transition to democracy began, an official clearance programme has yet to get underway. KYAUKKYI, Myanmar (Myanmar Now) – Two years ago, Kyar Yin was in the forest near his village collecting bamboo to sell when he stepped on a landmine. Alone and his left…

A six-year-old girl was killed and five villagers wounded by a landmine in U Mu Ta village, Hlaingbwe Township, two kilometers away from the Thai Burma border on Sunday May 25. The injured villagers are now in a Thai Hospital. According to sources from the Karen Department of Health and Welfare (KDHW), an organization that provides primary healthcare in the…

For villagers in southeastern Burma, a tentative 2012 ceasefire between ethnic Karen rebels and the government has yet to address an intractable threat that lurks along their trails, in their rice paddies and even dangling from branches – landmines and unexploded ordinance. Mine risk educator Pah Dah has spent the past six years traveling to remote villages in Karen State,…

At Mae Tao Clinic’s Prosthetic Department on the Thai-Burma border, the overwhelming majority of patients are land mine victims from Burma, human proof of the ongoing toll of more than six decades of armed conflict. 
Two men and a woman sit silent watching their new legs taking shape at Mae Tao Clinic’s prosthetic department. The two men and one woman…

Kayah civil society organizations plan to run a landmine education awareness campaign in Kayah (Karenni) State using grants awarded by the US Embassy in Rangoon. A total of six Kayah civil society organizations plan to carry out the mine risk education according Khu K’law Reh, joint coordinator of the Kayah Phu Christian Social Welfare Department. Speaking to Karen News, Khu…