Country & Territory Reports - Landmine Action

110 lebanon
According to the commander of the UN peacekeeping force
in South Lebanon, as of June 2002 Israel had handed over
maps detailing the locations of approximately 400,000
landmines. The first batch of maps received in June 2000
covered 77,000 mines mainly around former Israeli
outposts and 288 booby-trapped explosive devices. A
second batch received in December 2001 detailed the
presence of some 300,000 mines along the UN-delineated
Blue Line. In April 2002, UNIFIL received information on
13,600 landmines along the border south of Alma Shaab.
The Lebanese Army has indicated that the Israeli maps
provide information on less than 80 per cent of the
minefields and that fieldwork has shown the maps are
about 60 per cent accurate. 1199
ERW is scattered around former battlefields and frontline
areas. The UN peacekeeping force commander has
described cluster submunitions in South Lebanon as
perhaps the most dangerous ERW, including the airdropped
BLU-63/B and Mk.-118 Rockeye sub-munitions
and the artillery-delivered M43E1 submunition. 1200
Impact
The National Demining Office has recorded the following
casualties from mines and ordnance from 2001 to
September 2004: 1201
■ 2001: 69 casualties, 54 injured, 13 killed and two
unknown.
■ 2002: 16 casualties, 15 injured, one killed.
■ 2003: 12 casualties, all injured.
■ 2004: eight casualties, seven injured, one killed.
An analysis of casualties from 2000 to 2004 found that 94
per cent were male. 1202
The reduction in recorded casualties between 2001 and
2004 has been attributed to successful mine risk
education and major clearance activities in the most highly
afflicted areas in the south. While the number of landmine
victims has been significantly reduced, remaining
landmines and UXO have continued to affect the
confidence of people living in the affected areas and of
those who might otherwise return.
Efforts to address these problems
All demining in Lebanon is overseen by the National
Demining Office, established in April 1998, and sitting
within the LAF command structure as an operational unit of
the Lebanese army. 1203 The NDO coordinates the work of
the organizations and entities that execute humanitarian
mine action in Lebanon. This does not include operational
erw and motapm – global survey 2003–2004
mine clearance undertaken by UNIFIL on border minefields,
but information concerning clearance of these areas is
provided to the NDO through the UN MACC. 1204 A
nationwide Landmine Impact Survey (LIS) started in March
2002. The impact survey was implemented by Mines
Advisory Group (MAG), in collaboration with the NDO, with
technical support from the Vietnam Veterans of America
Foundation. A final national report covering all of Lebanon
was completed in August 2003. 1205
Operations in the south – under the United Arab Emirates
(UAE) funded Operation Emirates Solidarity (OES) – are
managed by the Mine Action Coordination Centre,
Southern Lebanon (MACC SL), which was established in
January 2002 and operates as a tripartite structure of the
UAE, the UN and the Lebanese Armed Forces, and is
mandated to coordinate mine action within the UNIFIL
mission area, defined as the area south of the Litani River.
Clearance activity has been intense in the south –
principally through the OES. This programme started in
May 2002 and, to the end of June 2004, had been
responsible for clearing more than four million square
metres of land, removing 56,482 AP mines, 1,678
MOTAPM and 4,420 other ERW items. 1206 Clearance in the
OES programme has been undertaken by two commercial
mine action companies; BACTEC from the UK and MineTech
from Zimbabwe. ArmorGroup, a British company, was
selected to undertake the quality assurance function. The
Landmine Resource Centre, within the faculty of Health
Sciences of the University of Balamand, Lebanon, was
awarded the community liaison contract. MAG undertook
clearance as tasked by the NDO.
ERW and MOTAPM have also been cleared from other
affected areas, primarily by the Lebanese Armed Forces,
MAG, and another NGO, the International Mine Initiative
(IMI.) The LAF report clearing 38,002 anti-personnel mines,
5,465 MOTAPM and 56,170 ERW since November 1990. 1207
In 2003, up to 16 May, the Army reported clearing 642
anti-personnel mines, 160 MOTAPM mines, and 14,031
bombs and other ERW.
Legislation
Lebanon has not acceded to the 1997 Ottawa
Convention. 1208 Lebanon became the first country to vote
against a pro-ban resolution on 1 December 1999 when it
voted against UNGA Resolution 54/54B, calling for universalisation
of the Ottawa Convention.
Lebanon is not a member of the Convention on
Conventional Weapons or its Amended Protocol II
(Landmines), but attended the Fourth Annual Conference of
States Parties to Amended Protocol II in December 2002.
1189 United Nations Mine Action Service website: E-MINE: The Electronic Mine Information Network
http://www.mineaction.org/countries/countries_overview.cfm?country_id=856 accessed on 11 September 2004
1190 National Demining Office website : http://www.ndo-lb.org/Results.tpl?rnd=1782&cart=109084458217010695&category=2&startat=1 accessed on
11 September 2004