Irrawaddy-June 5
The war zone has expanded in the two years since the putsch in Myanmar, and so have the number of minefields. Both Myanmar military and resistance forces use mines to attack each other. And it is an important weapon for resistance forces, who are inferior to the Myanmar military in terms of weaponry. While the land mine has become a key weapon, it is posing a great danger to civilians already suffering from the miseries of armed conflict. Of the 330 townships in Myanmar, 78 have reported land mine explosions since the coup. Those townships are in Sagaing, Bago, Mandalay, Tanintharyi and Magwe regions, and Kayah, Shan, Rakhine and Kachin states. According to UNICEF, 241 people were killed and 670 injured by land mines from April 2021 to March 2023 in those areas.
In Sagaing, Magwe and Mandalay regions, land mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) were once unheard of. There was no fighting in those areas before the coup. Clashes in these regions erupted and only intensified after people rose in rebellion against the Myanmar military for its coup and subsequent killings of peaceful protesters. The first cases of land-mine explosions in central Myanmar were reported in Sagaing in August 2021. Read more at:
