Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

Barry Andrews/Halo Trust

Barry Andrews For every day of war in Ukraine, 30 days of landmine clearing will be required

The Irish MEP recently visited Ukraine with an NGO and witnessed the difficult task of demining lethal weapons in a war zone.

THIS WEEK, I spent a day in a forest near Kyiv with staff from Halo Trust.

We set off on foot from the compound and immediately came upon an old lady wearing a headscarf herding her chickens along – just metres away from the spot where a local man had recently lost his life to a landmine explosion.

The winter weather had finally shifted and warm sunlight was coming through the trees. As we walked along the lane, we could have been welcoming the arrival of spring except that we were wearing flak jackets and mine clearance visors.

Red wooden posts marked where mines had been found; yellow wooden posts marked tripwires. We stuck to the path.

A catalogue of suffering

Sadly, many hundreds of civilians, from farmers to people innocently picking mushrooms, have been killed or injured by Russian landmines since the invasion.

Protecting people like the old lady and returning land to productive use is what Halo Trust has been doing in Ukraine since 2015.

A little further on we stopped at an abandoned Russian foxhole. It was a hole dug in the ground with a sheet of galvanised material thrown over it, covered in grass, leaves and earth. I had seen more sophisticated World War One trenches in Flanders. The stories about the primitive equipment provided to Russian soldiers started to make sense.

IMG_5400 Barry Andrews / Halo Trust Barry Andrews / Halo Trust / Halo Trust

Further along the lane, the Halo landmine clearance team were at work. A young man in his 20s folded up a canvass coal sack and kneeled on it. He bent down, studying the scrubby undergrowth.

The area under examination was a metre wide and 30cm deep. Once the visual examination was complete and he was satisfied that there was no trip-wire in evidence, he reached for his hedge clippers and began to cut back the vegetation and remove stones and fallen twigs. The debris was gathered up by hand and removed.

The team worked eight-hour days and only two mines had been found in the last week. I wondered how the staff managed to stop their minds from wandering. The area being cleared is about the size of 20 football fields and only 20% of it has been cleared since July – at least enough to allow the old lady to graze her chickens.

Scourge of mines

Anti-personnel mines are illegal under the Ottawa Convention however Russia is not a signatory. Such is the extent of demining required in Ukraine that it is estimated that for each day of the war, 30 days of landmine clearance will be required. This could take decades.

IMG_5332 Barry Andrews / Halo Trust Barry Andrews / Halo Trust / Halo Trust

Russia continues to develop the technology of anti-personnel mines. On average, the explosive power has been reduced on the basis that 100g of TNT can kill a person while 40g will take off a foot. The latter makes more sense as an injured soldier requires an evacuation and medical care thus tying up more resources than a dead body.

They have also developed mines with listening capacity that can distinguish between animals and humans thus not wasting any explosive ordnance on livestock.

Anti-tank mines are not illegal and the path we were walking on had not been surveyed for these devices. We were able to walk there because they require at least 150kg of pressure to detonate.

IMG_5342 Barry Andrews / Halo Trust Barry Andrews / Halo Trust / Halo Trust

Tripwire grenades are the most lethal of all. Fragments from the grenade can kill anyone within a 25m radius of the explosion.

Ukrainian spirit

Ukrainians are famously self-sufficient; this is especially true of Ukrainian farmers. Unless the pace of demining is accelerated, farmers will take greater risks to get land back into production, literally taking matters – and their lives – into their own hands.

IMG_5345 Barry Andrews / Halo Trust Barry Andrews / Halo Trust / Halo Trust

The Irish Government agreed last October to contribute 30 Defence Forces’ personnel to the EU Military Assistance Mission that will, among other things, provide demining training to the Ukrainian military. The decision was criticised by Paul Murphy TD on the basis that it was a breach of our neutrality.

This is a difficult position to understand. Far from being a breach of our neutrality, not doing it would be a breach of our humanity.

Clearing landmines from farmland or clearing unexploded remnants of war from schools, hospitals and apartment buildings is an act of demilitarisation.

How could helping to get rid of them be a breach of neutrality? We will have an opportunity to discuss these issues in more depth in June at the Consultative Forum established by the Tánaiste to discuss aspects of Ireland’s international security policy.

In the meantime, Ireland could and should be doing more in this area which will also have the benefit of contributing to addressing the global food security crisis and tackling inflation back home.

Ireland has found its voice before on nuclear non-proliferation and on banning cluster munitions. Demining is an area in which Ireland could really step up, make a meaningful impact and even provide global leadership.

Barry Andrews is the Fianna Fáil MEP for Dublin. 

voices logo

Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone...
A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation.

View 65 comments
Close
65 Comments
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic. Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy here before taking part.
Leave a Comment
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Me
    Favourite Me
    Report
    Nov 13th 2011, 9:39 PM

    Here lads. Someone has been injured in a seriously unpleasant attack. Is it really a place to be acting like two kids in a playground? Go do it somewhere else.

    174
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Adrian quinn
    Favourite Adrian quinn
    Report
    Nov 13th 2011, 9:51 PM

    Fair enough.

    47
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute BustingMyAss
    Favourite BustingMyAss
    Report
    Nov 13th 2011, 9:51 PM

    Well said, sorry I lost the run of myself.

    39
    See 1 more reply ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Waffler
    Favourite Waffler
    Report
    Nov 13th 2011, 9:52 PM

    i simply made a comment about how the media sensationalises violence today when in reality we are a much safer society than not so long ago. naturally the victim has my sympathy. somehow adrian feels i should be murdered for expressing an observation

    52
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Sharon Larkin
    Favourite Sharon Larkin
    Report
    Nov 13th 2011, 8:33 PM

    That’s terrible. Hope they catch the ones who did it.

    108
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Adrian quinn
    Favourite Adrian quinn
    Report
    Nov 13th 2011, 9:26 PM

    Utter nonsense. You did not see 3 fights every night you went out. You simply did not. A complete lie. You are an idiot. You should not be let near a computer. Not just for this comment, but for every other idiotic, badly spelt, uninformed comment you have posted in the past.

    104
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Waffler
    Favourite Waffler
    Report
    Nov 13th 2011, 9:34 PM

    walk across oconnell bridge in 1990 at 2am and get back to me. and the good news is i was stabbed twice in my teens, once with a syringe, the bad news for you is i lived

    23
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute BustingMyAss
    Favourite BustingMyAss
    Report
    Nov 13th 2011, 9:43 PM

    I remember Cork in the 80′s: fights were very common and people were quite baise about it. Gang fights were common: often you’d get 2-3 van loads of scumbags descending on rival estates for a royal rumble. This all died out when XTC hit in the early 90′s. You were more likely to get a hug walking home after that!

    74
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Shanti Om
    Favourite Shanti Om
    Report
    Nov 13th 2011, 8:48 PM

    Sending all the best to the victim. Here’s hoping the perpetrators are caught quickly.

    91
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute BustingMyAss
    Favourite BustingMyAss
    Report
    Nov 13th 2011, 9:43 PM

    Well said Om

    32
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Waffler
    Favourite Waffler
    Report
    Nov 13th 2011, 10:35 PM

    ok this comment was removed so i’ll try again. for all those red thumbing me let me give you some perspective. when i was fifteen i was stabbed after a school football match in tolka park along with 7 of my classmates. when i was eighteen i was accosted by 3 men at a bus stop on abbey st. they made me empty my money at an atm before stabbing me with a syringe. neither incident got media coverage as they were common occurences back then. i’m glad we’ve progressed so much that these incidents are so rare that they make headlines. maybe you’ll delete this again but i’m baffled why

    75
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute M kenny
    Favourite M kenny
    Report
    Nov 13th 2011, 8:48 PM

    Wtf is Ireland becoming?

    51
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Waffler
    Favourite Waffler
    Report
    Nov 13th 2011, 9:11 PM

    you are joking? the fact that this makes the news shoe how much safer we are now than 20 years ago. when i started going out in dublin i would see at least 3 fights a night between grafton st and my bus on abbey st, rarely see any street violence these days

    43
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Adrian quinn
    Favourite Adrian quinn
    Report
    Nov 13th 2011, 10:33 PM

    Waffler I’m sorry for that silly comment earlier. You are however misinterpeting the report. The news item simply stated that a woman had been stabbed. No sensationalism. Simply a news report. You appear at times to post here just for reaction. All under a psuedonym by the way.

    42
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Waffler
    Favourite Waffler
    Report
    Nov 13th 2011, 8:36 PM

    we have it good today, when i was growing up this happened day in day out

    16
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute
    Favourite
    Report
    Nov 13th 2011, 8:40 PM

    grew up where exactly waffler?

    hope the victim recovers.

    108
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Adrian quinn
    Favourite Adrian quinn
    Report
    Nov 13th 2011, 9:08 PM

    Tool

    87
    See 3 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Adrian quinn
    Favourite Adrian quinn
    Report
    Nov 13th 2011, 9:08 PM

    Where do you live?

    39
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Waffler
    Favourite Waffler
    Report
    Nov 13th 2011, 9:08 PM

    blanchardstown in the 80s. theyd send in the army now if it was still like that

    23
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Waffler
    Favourite Waffler
    Report
    Nov 13th 2011, 9:29 PM

    wtf adrian?

    33
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Brian M
    Favourite Brian M
    Report
    Nov 13th 2011, 10:12 PM

    My comment removed!? And I cheered for you in the convention centre last Thursday night…

    13
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Waffler
    Favourite Waffler
    Report
    Nov 13th 2011, 10:15 PM

    i cant see why your comment was removed, please explain journal

    17
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Waffler
    Favourite Waffler
    Report
    Nov 13th 2011, 10:24 PM

    and wheres my last comment gone? what the hell is going on?

    12
Submit a report
Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
Thank you for the feedback
Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.

Leave a commentcancel

 
JournalTv
News in 60 seconds