Landmines in the floodplain: small, deadly – and now impossible to find Wildfires in Canada – here’s everything you want to know

The water has incredible power, flooding hundreds of square miles in southern Ukraine, destroying homes, forcing thousands to flee and creating an unpredictable, deadly threat. After the explosion at the Kachowka dam, the flood washed a large amount of land mines into the hinterland. Ukrainian authorities and aid organizations such as the International Red Cross and CARE Austria are already warning of the drifting of the landmines.

Britain’s aid organization Halo Trust, whose employees include defusing explosives in Ukraine, reports that the flood has moved the explosives into already known and mapped areas. The organization CARE also reports that mines float in the water and pose a major threat to the people in the region. “Landmines displaced by the floods pose a danger to local residents and rescue workers alike,” writes the Mines Advisory Group (MAG), which is also active in clearing mines in Ukraine.

Even more of a concern are the long-term consequences: “We’ve seen in other countries how even seasonal flooding can dislodge landmines and drive them into areas previously considered safe,” says MAG.

Anti-personnel mines and anti-vehicle mines are among the most terrible weapons in all wars, and both sides use these explosives in Ukraine as well. In particular, the mines designed to maim people are difficult to find, defuse and often remain a significant risk to the population for decades even after the fighting has ended.

They are small, some weigh as little as 100 grams and often activate when moved or loaded with weight. They pose an extreme danger to children at play. According to the federal government, about 2,000 people are injured or killed by mines each month worldwide.

Minefields have been moved

The use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines has been prohibited under international law since 1 March 1999 under the Ottawa Treaty. Germany was one of the first to sign the treaty, although some countries, such as Russia and the United States, did not join the treaty.

Ukraine, on the other hand, has ratified the treaty, but still had more than three million copies in 2021, according to the Bundestag’s research service. It has also received claymore mines from the US, which, however, can only be detonated in the included remote control version. In the legal opinion of the US government, they are not covered by the Ottawa Treaty.

The anti-personnel mines aimed at people are usually not intended to kill the victims directly, but to injure them so badly that several helpers have to take care of them. The goal is to weaken the enemy, bind enemy soldiers and medics, and demoralize the populace.

Vehicle mines, on the other hand, are not prohibited. They explode when a pressure plate is loaded with a certain weight or when an optical sensor is activated. Most mines cannot distinguish between an enemy tank, tractor or truck carrying supplies. There are also models that are ignited by wire or radio.

The Russian army has laid large quantities of anti-tank mines in the parts of the Kherson region it occupies. So she tried to secure river crossings in the region against crossings by the Ukrainians. The minefields there were particularly dense before the flood.

There are also thousands and thousands of mines in the southern areas that were liberated by Ukrainian forces last fall. The Halo Trust alone has defused 5,000 mines. Now areas that were already considered safe are once again infested with mines. Terrain that has already been searched must be checked again by the few specialists, a time-consuming and dangerous job.

Metal detectors cannot always be used for this, as anti-personnel mines are also made of plastic or other material, making them difficult to find with detectors. Dismantlers therefore use mine detectors – non-magnetic metal rods that are carefully inserted into the ground to search for buried explosives – as well as animals with good noses such as dogs, rats and pigs that specialize in searching.

Floating landmines also pose a threat to the armed forces. The Russian soldiers now no longer know where their own explosives have gone. In the Kherson region, they must always be prepared to run into their own mines when expanding positions or trying to reoccupy the riverbanks. For the Ukrainians, who have crossed the Dnipro several times with small troops in recent weeks, little will change: they always have to reckon with Russian mines anyway.

It is not only aid organizations that defuse mines. Soldiers of the Ukrainian army are also deployed. The Bundeswehr has already trained Ukrainian engineers to clear minefields and has also supplied some special tanks for this purpose. There is also the State Service of Ukraine for Emergency Situations (DSNS), which is also responsible for defusing.

Since May last year, Ukraine’s demining teams have been deployed on a large scale. The Russian advance on Kiev had been pushed back by this time and people were slowly returning to their villages. And those who had remained hesitant dared to step outside again. Duds, unexploded ordnance and land mines are still a major and widespread threat to them.

Farmers are at particularly high risk of activating mines

The DSNS teams sometimes received several hundred orders per day, of which they could only process a fraction. Farmers were at the bottom of their priority list at the time. Their fields had been cleared by Russian soldiers who retreated. Initially, however, villages and towns had priority for clearing.

But because agriculture follows the seasons and not the demining crews, the farmers have to make a choice: either they wait and risk losing the entire harvest and thus their income, or they risk driving a tractor into a vehicle mine and losing the air. to fly in. Many a farmer dared to harvest and died in the process.

Those who could afford it rented metal detectors or walked through the fields hoping to see with the naked eye if there was danger lurking somewhere. Although most fields are now considered mine-free, this all-clear signal is not exactly reliable. However, the farmers can’t wait for the clearing crews. The next harvest season has already started, the farmers have to go back into the fields – still at great risk.

The mine clearance teams in the flooded area are now searching for the duds and mines hidden under the water and mud. This makes cleaning up the flooded areas even more complicated and takes even longer. Because the helpers there are also repeatedly shot at, the deminers can often only carry out their already risky work to a limited extent.

Many people in the Kherson region probably want to return home as soon as possible. They withstood many extreme situations, survived the Russian occupation and Russian fire very close to the front. Now they must learn to deal with the new danger, because the washed away mines will threaten health and life for a long time to come.

This article was first published on Zeit Online. Watson may have changed the headings and subheadings. Here’s the original.