ICRC Says Yemen’s Explosives Contamination Among World’s Worst

International Committee of the Red Cross, ICRC has warned that Yemen has one of the world’s highest rates of contamination with landmines and other deadly explosives, nine years after the start of the brutal civil war.

The organization says the country is among the three countries worst affected by landmines and other deadly explosives.

The impoverished Arab nation, plunged into conflict when Iran-backed Huthi rebels seized the capital in September 2014, is among the three worst affected countries.

Experts estimate that at least one million mines have been planted during Yemen’s years of turmoil, causing a daily hazard along with unexploded shells and other military detritus.

A Saudi-led military coalition has been fighting the Huthis since March 2015 in a conflict that has left hundreds of thousands dead from direct and indirect causes such as famine.

According to the UN-linked Civilian Impact Monitoring Project, landmines, unexploded shells and other leftovers from fighting caused 1,469 civilian casualties over the past five years.

The ICRC also added that after conducting a series of interviews last year, it found that twenty percent of livestock owners living in two areas close to frontlines reported explosives contamination on their land.

Another ICRC survey of shepherds found that 70 percent had lost animals to landmines and other explosives.

Fighting in Yemen has calmed markedly after a UN-brokered ceasefire came into effect in April 2022 and has largely held even after the agreement lapsed in October 2022.