Flooding South Lebanon - Human Rights Watch

Clearance and Risk Awareness
Because of the widespread presence of cluster submunitions in south Lebanon and
the detrimental humanitarian consequences of duds, rapid clearance is essential.
Although clearance groups have moved at a quick pace, clearing the estimated
hundreds of thousands and possibly up to one million unexploded submunitions is
a time- and labor-intensive endeavor. “There is a lot of work. One company, one
army, cannot do it,” a demining official said. 249 NGOs, governmental organizations,
private demining companies, UNIFIL, and the Lebanese Army are collaborating to
clear unexploded submunitions as quickly as possible so that civilians may return to
their normal lives. These groups have also worked together to create public
awareness (risk education) campaigns about submunitions to try to minimize the
ongoing civilian casualties.
Clearance History in Lebanon
Because of the large quantity of landmines and unexploded ordnance from previous
conflicts, Lebanon already had an extensive demining program in place before the
2006 war. From the beginning of the civil war in 1975 until Israel’s withdrawal in
2000, Israel extensively used antipersonnel mines, antivehicle mines, cluster
munitions, and other weapons in Lebanon, leaving behind abundant explosive
remnants of war. A landmine impact survey completed in 2003 estimated that mines
and other explosive remnants of war affected 137 square kilometers of land in 22 of
24 districts, with high contamination in the immediate area of the UN-delineated
Blue Line along the border with Israel. 250
To address the need for clearance, the Lebanese government established the
National Demining Office, a part of the Lebanese Armed Forces, in the late 1990s.
The UN established the Mine Action Coordination Center, overseen by the UN Mine
Action Service, in 2002. While the people of Lebanon have benefited greatly from
having an established mine clearance program operating for several years, the 2006
249 Human Rights Watch interview with Johan den Haan, BACTEC, Tyre, October 25, 2006.
250 See International Campaign to Ban Landmines, Landmine Monitor Report 2006 (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, 2006), pp.
988-989.
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