Landmine Clearance
How do you locate a minefield?
A survey team will start by identifying a landmine-afflicted community.Once it has been established that landmines affect the community, the survey officer will try to identify the area believed to be a minefield. They will use a variety of sources of information to locate a minefield; this will range from minefield records, local knowledge or other sources. Minefield records; if a minefield is laid it should be recorded and marked; in many conflicts this is not done. This could be for a variety of reasons; but is often because soldiers involved in such conflicts are not professional soldiers, but conscripts or guerrilla fighters. After the war in Kosovo, the Yugoslavian Army provided the UN with very accurate minefield records. This made the task of identifying minefields much easier in many cases. Local knowledge; is an invaluable source of information. People who live their lives with landmines will know which fields not to use and which tracks not to drive down. A survey team will be able to take such information and locate suspected minefields.
How do you decide where to work and what land to clear?
Demining agencies must identify areas of ground that has the highest priority for clearance. This will be done in consultation with the landmine-affected community, NGOs and local government, in accordance with the organisation's prioritisation. An area may be thought to be mined, or the fear of landmines is denying the use of this land to the local inhabitants. Once the land has been cleared it is then free to be used. A large plot of land may be denied to the local inhabitants by only a few landmines, therefore the area cleared is more important than the number of landmines found.
How do you locate a mine?
The most common method will be a deminer using a metal detector. A deminer will use a metal detector and a variety of other tools, quiet often-simple gardening tools. The detector will indicate the presence of metal in the ground. Every metal indication given by the metal detector needs to be checked in case it's a mine. So the more metal fragments there are, the more time it might take.The deminer will then mark this spot prior to excavating on that location using a probe and excavation tools. If he or she finds a landmine, a superior will be informed.
No, there are some that do not contain any metal at all.
So how do you clear mines without metal in them?
The deminers will have to carry out a 100% excavation or detection dogs maybe used in such areas.
Who actually clears the mines?
In most cases deminers will be from the local community, sometimes they are demobilised soldiers. These people will make up the national staff employed by mine action organisations. Mine clearances organisations are committed to capacity building of local staff; providing management training national staff, so that they can one day run the programme without the presences of international staff. Mines in Cambodia, for example, are a Cambodian problem; it is the Khmer people, family, friends who are affected by landmines. A deminer in Cambodia could earn around US$150 a month, this money maybe the only income for that family; and means the family can have food on the table. By employing national staff, the employees get ownership of a clearance programme. More often than not a deminer will be the only salary earner in a family, so much needed income is being generated for communities.
What do they do when they find a landmine?
This will depend on the type of minefield being cleared, whether it is an anti-personnel (AP) or anti-tank (AT) minefield. Once an AP landmine has been located and identified it will normally be located destroyed in-situ. This is done by placing a small explosive charge next to the mine and blowing it up. An AT landmine, will be neutralised to make it safe, and then removed, so that it can be removed from the ground and destroyed in a demolitions area. Many AT landmines have a metal outer skin. If it were to be blown up, the metal from the mine would fly into other areas of the minefield and increase the metal contamination in the area being cleared.
