For seven years, soldiers from the Colombian National Army’s Humanitarian Demining Engineer Battalion No. 2 have been working on eliminating explosive devices in the municipality of Roncesvalles, Tolima department, in Colombia’s central mountain range. In this area, where 14 victims of anti-personnel mines were recorded during this period, deminers were present in 27 sectors, the National Army’s Humanitarian Demining Brigade said on May 10.
Likewise, the sub-region of Los Montes de María was declared free of suspected antipersonnel mines on May 2. In this territory, the Colombian Navy’s Amphibious Demining and Engineering Battalion (BDIAN) cleared nearly 600,000 square meters in 19 municipalities of the departments of Bolívar and Sucre, in the Colombian Caribbean.
These two areas cleared of mines are the most recent results of the Colombian Military Forces, in the country most affected by mines after Afghanistan, according to the Colombian Victims Registry. In Colombia, more than 12,000 people have been victims of antipersonnel mines. However, the demining efforts of the Military Forces have worked, and 81 percent of the national territory is free of mines.
At the national level, from 2009 to May 17, 2024, authorities cleared 6,518,522 m2 of mines, declaring 20 municipalities free of suspected antipersonnel mines, and destroying 242 devices. According to data provided to Diálogo by Colombian Marine Corps Major Carlos Andrés Blanco Cifuentes, BDIAN commander, services members handled 1,072 events of the Mine Action Management Information System, cleared 72 dangerous zones, and took part in 5,937 education days on explosive device risk prevention.
In this same period, humanitarian demining in Colombia delivered 327 zones or municipalities without suspected mines and destroyed 9,249 explosive devices Maj. Blanco said. Eighty-two percent of these results were achieved by the Humanitarian Demining Brigade, 6.11 percent by the Halo Trust, and 6.11 percent by the BDIAN, while the remaining was due to the participation of organizations such as the Colombian Campaign Against Mines, the Association of Explosives Technicians, the Danish Refugee Council, Norwegian People’s Aid, the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators, and Humanity and Inclusion.
BDIAN has received the support from the Humanitarian Assistance Defense Security Cooperation Agency (ODHACA), an entity that, since April 2021, delivered several teams for humanitarian demining tasks. Also, the Organization of American States, through the Program of Comprehensive Action Against Antipersonnel Mines, has delivered several donations such as tents for the deployment of personnel and uniforms for deminers, among many others. In addition, the BDIAN received training support, through four courses on basic explosives handling, in which approximately 120 deminers took part since 2022.
The deminer and demining leader courses are given at the Colombian Navy’s Peace Operations Training Center. These courses are used to detect, mark, neutralize, and destroy explosive devices. “They have also participated in 11 humanitarian demining courses, for a total training of about 250 men since 2015, with support from the Inter-American Technical Advisors Group from Brazil, which has trained 21 students of the monitors course since 2016,” Maj. Blanco said.
In Colombia, those most responsible for the use of antipersonnel mines have been the guerrillas, whose main victims are members of the Public Force, but also civilians, including children and adolescents, Colombia’s National Historical Memory Center, (CMH) indicated. “Most of those who suffer the explosion of an antipersonnel mine survive with physical consequences that remain for the rest of their lives and generally, the victims require permanent care, something that exacerbates the situation of peasant families or those who are in difficult conditions,” said CMH.
“Antipersonnel mines have a constant mission: to kill or maim without human control,” the CMH said in a statement. “They are installed for that objective, which does not end until a victim activates them by accident, regardless of whether they explode under a soldier, a peasant, a boy or a girl.”