As a child, Joc was injured by a cluster munition in Laos. Today, Humanity & Inclusion provides support to the young man who lives with multiple disabilities.

When Joc was 5, he was searching for worms to use as fishing bait in his village in northeast Laos. As he was digging in the ground, he came across an older cluster munition that was buried. It exploded. Joc spent a month in the hospital following the incident. His left arm was amputated, and he has had difficulties with hearing well ever since.

In the 14 years since the incident, Joc has found himself feeling marginalized. Daily activities like getting dressed, cooking and riding a bike are difficult. School was challenging because he was unable to hear his teacher or socialize with friends.

In 2019, Joc attended a training course organized by Humanity & Inclusion for the inclusion of people with disabilities. Soon after, Joc became an inclusion ambassador for Humanity & Inclusion; he supports, advises and integrates other people with disabilities in his village.

“Having a survivor like Joc as a local ambassador on inclusion helps us to raise awareness of communities on the fact that survivors and people with disabilities have the right to participate meaningfully in all decision-making processes that affect them,” says Julien Kempeneers, a regional armed violence reduction specialist for Humanity & Inclusion.

This year, Joc, who is now 19, attended a livestock training organized by Humanity & Inclusion. Raising animals will be a great opportunity for Joc to generate income and become even more independent.

"I want to have a good future, to be included in the society, to live happily and independently,” Joc explains.

Weapons clearance in Laos

Laos has the highest level of cluster bomb contamination in the world. Nearly 500 square miles of land is considered to be dangerous.

Humanity & Inclusion launched its first weapons clearance operations in Laos in June 1996, removing contamination of exploded bombs, bomb fragments, explosive remnants, grenades, and other ammunitions. Deminers also detect larger, unexploded bombs—often weighing several hundred pounds—transport them to a specialized site to be safely detonated.

Since 2006, Humanity & Inclusion has decontaminated more than 1,200 acres of land in Houaphan and Savannakhet provinces. Since 2019, Humanity & Inclusion has destroyed 6,710 unexploded ordnances in Laos.

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Humanity & Inclusion has launched new mine clearance operations in Casamance, Senegal, to help communities safely access their villages, schools and medical facilities.

The new operations in southern Senegal launched in May 2022. The operations, which will last until March 2023, are focused on Kaour and Adéane, in the regions of Ziguinchor and Sédhiou.

"In these regions, the areas surrounding some schools, medical centers, roads, villages and fields are still polluted, or are suspected of being polluted by explosive devices," says explains Abdourahmane Ba, head of mine clearance operations in Senegal. "But as the number of vital infrastructures is limited, it is essential that people have safe access to them."

Approximately 25 acres of land need to be released back to the communities. The aim is to clear areas contaminated by mines and other explosive devices and investigate suspected hazardous areas.

Dating back to 2008, the Humanity & Inclusion’s deminers cleared more than 116 acres of land during previous actions in Senegal.

Diverse mine clearance techniques

Humanity & Inclusion has set up its operational base about 30 miles from Ziguinchor. The teams stay there for 10 days while they carry out operations, then have a 3-day rest in town. The demining staff recruited for the project have more than 10 years' field experience. The teams are made up of a project manager, an operations manager, two team leaders, six deminers, two nurses, two community liaison officers, a mechanic, two development officers and three drivers. In total, 10 deminers work for Humanity & Inclusion in Casamance, including two women.

"We do manual demining,” Ba explains. “Deminers inspect the land with metal detectors, inch by inch, along a marked corridor.”

Humanity & Inclusion also does mechanical demining, using the Digger, a demining machine that extracts mines and explosive remnants from the ground. Ba explains that the machine is mainly used in areas where there is a suspicion of undetectable mines such as the Belgian-made PRBM35 and the Spanish-made C3A/B, which are frequently found in Casamance.

"We are also planning to use drones to support our demining activities," Ba adds. "Among other things, they will improve our mapping of suspected hazardous areas. They’ve been used successfully in the Chadian desert, but now we need to test them in a different environment. In Casamance, we are demining in an environment mainly composed of forests and dense vegetation.”

A mission is underway to evaluate the feasibility of using drones.

Working in the rainiest region in Senegal, operations will have to adapt to the rainy season, which runs from July to October. Torrential rains would slow down demining activities, and for safety reasons neither deminers nor the Digger can work on flooded ground.

Working alongside communities

"Alongside the demining activities, Humanity & Inclusion conducts awareness and risk education sessions in the region, in partnership with the Senegalese association of mine victims," Ba continues. "The aim is to understand the habits of the population and to suggest safe behaviors that are adapted to their daily lives. Thanks to the work done by our liaison officers, all the members of the communities—including people with disabilities, women or the elderly—are involved in deciding which areas should be cleared as a priority.”

Humanity & Inclusion will also accompany communities once they start returning to the cleared areas and contribute to economic recovery. The organization will provide people with construction materials, and will also support the development of income-generating activities.

Contamination in Senegal

Armed independence groups and Senegalese government forces have been in conflict for almost 40 years. Anti-personnel mines and anti-tank mines, which were used on a massive scale in the region between 1990 and 2000, still threaten civilians today. Between 1988 and 2017, almost 850 people fell victim to mines or explosive remnants of war.

n Casamance, nearly 300 acres of land are still suspected of being contaminated and need to be made safe. With its substantial natural resources and strong agricultural, mining and fishing potential, clearing land in Casamance is a humanitarian and development priority.

Senegal hopes to achieve its goal of becoming “mine-free” by 2025.

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Gaëlle Smith, emergency rehabilitation specialist for Humanity & Inclusion, explains the severity of blast injuries in eastern Ukraine and the importance of early rehabilitation for recovery. 

“Stop Bombing Civilians” agreement: Who will adopt? How will they implement? What will it change for civilians in conflict? 

Silver Spring, June 13, 2022—The closing consultation for an international agreement to better protect civilians from explosive weapons in populated areas will happen June 17, 2022, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

The meeting gathers more than 60 State delegations, including the U.S., as well as representatives of international and civil society organizations. It features the presentation of the final version of the international agreement. This consultation concludes a two-year diplomatic process. A Humanity & Inclusion delegation will continue its dialogue with States to ensure that the final text effectively improves civilians’ chances to survive active conflict, elevating experience from the organization’s work with conflict survivors from countries such Syria, Yemen, Ukraine, Libya and Iraq.

The final agreement will be submitted to States for adoption at a conference to be held later this year, in a location not yet announced.  

In April, State representatives gathered in Geneva, reaching broad consensus on the urgent need to commit to preventing the civilian harm that explosive weapons used in populated areas causes. Several States appeared ready to exclude use of the heaviest explosive weapons from populated areas by including a presumption of non-use of explosive weapons with wide areas effects in populated areas. Many States declared themselves willing to share good practices on their use of explosive weapons in order to better protect civilians from these weapons.

Two months later, the final version of the international agreement takes good steps, but in other places doesn’t go far enough. It provides clarity on the humanitarian impact of explosive weapons, including their reverberating effects. And the text contains strong language on victim assistance, clearance and teaching civilians to mitigate risk through education about living amid explosive ordnance. However, the agreement is less ambitious than expected when it comes to limiting the use of explosive weapons in populated areas.

“In two years of diplomatic process, we have come a long way,” says Jeff Meer, U.S. Executive Director. “From denial on the part of States with respect to the humanitarian consequences of explosive weapons, we have moved to their full acknowledgment of patterns of harm caused to civilians by these weapons. But this international agreement is only the beginning of a long process to achieve tangible improvements to the protection of civilians. The next step will be its endorsement by States—and the big question is: which ones will do so? Humanity & Inclusion will do everything in our power to obtain the most endorsements possible, including from militarily active States like the United States, United Kingdom, and France. And then we look forward to seeing real implementation steps to create a safer world for all.”

The international agreement’s impact will depend on States’ political will to fully commit to protecting civilians. Delegates will be closely watching the reaction of affected States as well as States that are actively participating in military operations. If they endorse the agreement, then Humanity & Inclusion believes that the agreement can provide a starting point for States to change military policies and practices to ensure better protection of civilians and civilian objects from explosive weapons.

This diplomatic process began two years ago at the Vienna conference in October 2019. The goal? To draw up an international agreement that will reinforce the protection of civilians in war zones. Humanity & Inclusion has tirelessly discussed with States the need for an agreement that should effectively end to the suffering from the use of explosive weapons in populated areas.

“The international agreement could be a breakthrough for the protection of civilians in war zone,” notes Alma Al Osta, Humanity & Inclusion's Disarmament and Protection of Civilians Advocacy Manager. “Will States join the agreement when it is put forward for adoption? Will they have the political will to implement it? We will be watching the measures and policies they implement very closely. With the Explosive Weapons Monitor that we co-created in 2022, we will monitor military policies and practices to ensure better protection of civilian from explosive weapons.”

Devastating humanitarian consequences

Massive and repeated use of these weapons in populated areas is one of the main causes of long-term humanitarian crises, and civilians are the principal victims. Indeed, 90% of those killed and injured by explosive weapons in populated areas are civilians, according to Action on Armed Violence. Those injured are at risk of lifelong disabilities and severe psychological trauma.

Cities in Ukraine offer a devastating illustration. They are currently enduring massive bombings, which regularly sees banned weapons such as cluster munitions in play. At least 8,000 civilians have been killed or injured since the beginning of the war on February 24, but the actual figures are certainly much higher. According to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, “most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide-area effect, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes.”

Bombings have destroyed vital infrastructure, including hospitals, houses, and water supplies. Twelve million people have already fled to neighboring countries or other parts of Ukraine. This massive and systematic bombing of populated areas has triggered the worst humanitarian crisis in Europe since World War II.

“Let’s be clear: the most destructive weapons should not be used in cities and towns, and other places where civilians live,” Meer adds. “Bombing and shelling in populated areas robbed 240,000 people of their lives between 2011 and 2020. Almost all casualties of bombing in urban areas are people like you and me who were never involved in the fighting, who did all they could to protect themselves from explosive violence. It is an unacceptable evolution of modern conflict that civilians are now by far the principal victims. Today, weapons such as 500-kg bombs, designed for use in open battlefields and with an impact radius of several hundred feet, are dropped from planes on crowded cities. Such weapons show no mercy for civilians. At Humanity & Inclusion, we will be relentless in denouncing the harm caused to civilians by urban bombing and call for better protection of civilians.”

United Nations Secretary General António Guterres seems to agree. In his annual report on the protection of civilians in armed conflict on May 18, 2022, he recognizes the ‘urgent need’ for parties to conflict to ‘avoid the use of explosive weapons with wide-area effects in populated areas’. Secretary Guterres also acknowledges the ‘reverberating effects on essential services such as water, sanitation, electricity and health care’ caused by bombing and shelling in populated area. In his report, Secretary Guterres expresses his support for ‘continuing efforts towards a political declaration to address this problem’: ‘Such a declaration should include a clear commitment by States to avoid the use of wide-area effect explosive weapons in populated areas’.

Chronology of the diplomatic process

• October 2019: The Vienna Conference launches the political process for an international agreement against the use of explosive weapons in populated areas. This conference was attended by 133 States. A majority of States announced their willingness to work on a political declaration to end the human suffering caused by the use of explosive weapons in populated areas.
• November 2019: First round of consultations on the text of the political declaration
• February 2020: Second round of consultations with 70 states in attendance to discuss the political declaration
• March 2020: Restrictive measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic began, and the in-person consultation process was suspended
• September 2020: Ireland organized a high-level panel followed by a webinar to address the challenges of urban warfare and the use of explosive weapons in populated areas
• March 2021: Informal online consultations
• April 2021: The National Defence Commission of the Belgian Federal Parliament adopted an historic parliamentarian resolution on the protection of civilians from bombing and shelling in populated areas.
• May 2021: Parliamentarians from five countries participated in the European Inter-Parliamentarian Conference on the future political declaration to protect civilians from the use of explosive weapons in populated areas. Since then, more than 250 parliamentarians from Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Norway, Switzerland and the European Union have signed the European Inter-Parliamentarian Joint Statement.
• April 2022: Final round of consultations to negotiate the final text of the international agreement against the use of explosive weapons in populated areas
• June 2022: Final version of the text to be shared and concluded
• Date to be determined, hopefully in 2022: Political declaration opens for endorsement.

More information

• View a copy of the "Political Declaration on Strengthening the Protection of Civilians from the Humanitarian Consequences arising from the use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas"

Fazal, 18, lost his leg in a mine accident. Humanity & Inclusion is providing him with rehabilitation care.

When he was 16, Fazal worked in a garden in Kandahar, picking pomegranates. One day, the vehicle that Fazal and his co-workers were traveling in on their way to work ran over a mine on the side of the road. The explosion was terrible. Fazal was severely wounded. One of his co-workers was killed and two others were injured.

Fazal spent more than two months in a hospital in Kabul, where he underwent surgery to amputate his leg.

At Humanity & Inclusion’s rehabilitation center in Kandahar, a team of specialists immediately provided him with crutches so that he could get around on his own. Measurements were taken of his amputated leg so he could be fitted with an artificial leg. Fazal worked with experts to complete physical therapy exercises to strengthen his muscles and adapt to walking with the artificial limb.

“Now I can do my daily tasks by myself without the help of a member of my family,” Fazal explains. "I feel hopeful about the future."

Opened in 1996, Humanity & Inclusion’s rehabilitation center in Kandahar treats people injured by explosive weapons. It is the only rehabilitation center in southern Afghanistan. Survivors of other accidents, individuals with diabetes-related amputations and people with polio are among other patients treated by the 52 professionals specialized in physical therapy or psychosocial support at the clinic.

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Some people displaced by the war in Ukraine are beginning to return home to cities contaminated by explosive ordnance. Humanity & Inclusion will prepare communities to identify hazards and adopt safe behaviors.

Humanity & Inclusion is working with communities in Ukraine to help them adopt conflict preparedness behaviors before, during and after armed attacks.

Anfal Mahmoud Ali, shares how her experience living amid conflict shapes her work as a mental health and psychosocial support officer for Humanity & Inclusion in Iraq.

I remember May 5, 2017, like it was yesterday.   

My family had been hiding in our bathroom for days without food or water, clutching our IDs. Our neighborhood in Mosul had been liberated from ISIS, but fighting on our street persisted. Then the airstrike happened. Our family home crumbled around us. By a miracle, we survived and managed to escape first to a neighbor’s house, then to a displacement camp. 

Later that year, we returned to Mosul. We had nothing. A friend of mine told me that Humanity & Inclusion was hiring, so I applied. Since working here, I've been able to support my family, repair my house, and rebuild our lives.  

I've seen first-hand the effect that conflict has on civilians. They lose their loved ones, their jobs, and their homes. And they usually face poor conditions, even after the fighting is over. Violence and devastation can cause people to experience depression, sadness and sometimes suicidal thoughts. Some people suppress their feelings. Others develop physical or chronic illness as their mental health needs go untreated.  

My colleagues and I conduct awareness sessions with people experiencing psychological trauma, encouraging them to seek help and teaching coping mechanisms. When I meet all of these wonderful people, I am motivated to wake up in the morning and do my work with love. My neighbors understand that we need to stand by each other to survive. I thank those who are helping survivors of conflict, like me, access essential resources—shelter, rehabilitation, mental health support, and more. 

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(Washington, 19 April 2022)—The U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines - U.S. Cluster Munition Coalition (USCBL-USCMC) takes exception to U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley’s remarks concerning landmines during his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 7, 2022.

General Milley testified that “we need to look no further than what’s happening actually in Ukraine, the landmines are being effectively used by the Ukrainian forces to shape the avenues of approach…Anti-tank or anti-personnel mines are effective for use in combat.” The USCBL-USCMC strongly condemns the use of internationally banned anti-personnel landmines by any party, regardless of any potential military use, because they disproportionately and indiscriminately kill and maim civilians during, and long after, wars have ended. 

General Milley mentioned two types of mines: anti-personnel and anti-tank. Anti-personnel landmines, which are banned under the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty to which 164 countries are states parties, are inherently indiscriminate weapons incapable of distinguishing between civilians and combatants. Ukraine is party to the treaty; as of the publication of this statement, there has been no reported use of anti-personnel mines by Ukrainian forces. Neither Russia nor the United States is party to the Mine Ban Treaty, and Russian forces have used anti-personnel mines in Ukraine. 

Ukraine is already one of the most mine-affected countries in the world: every day, more than half a million children live, study and play in mine-contaminated areas of Ukraine. 

USCBL-USCMC continues to strongly urge the Biden Administration to take swift action to condemn the use of anti-personnel landmines and take immediate steps to ban the use of such landmines by the U.S. and accede to the Mine Ban Treaty. The failure of the United States to join the international agreement banning anti-personnel landmines weakens the impact of United States’ criticism of Russia’s use of these weapons. 

USCBL-USCMC Steering Committee

Humanity & Inclusion (chair) 

Amnesty International USA 

Arms Control Association 

Center for Civilians in Conflict 

Friends Committee on National Legislation 

Human Rights Watch 

Legacies of War 

Physicians for Human Rights 

UNICEF USA 

United Methodist Church -General Board of Church and Society 

West Virginia Campaign to Ban Landmines and Cluster Munitions / Proud Students Against Landmines 

After Denys Byzov and his family were forced to flee their home in Kyiv amid violent rocket attacks and bombing, he said goodbye to his wife and 1-year-old baby as they crossed the border while he stayed behind.

He joined Humanity & Inclusion’s emergency response team as a cultural mediator and translator to ensure that needs of his fellow Ukrainians are heard, and that the organization’s actions take everyone into account.