Last updated October 2013

Mine ban policy overview

Policy

The Republic of Yemen signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 4 December 1997 and ratified it on 1 September 1998. It entered into force on 1 March 1999. National implementation legislation was enacted on 20 April 2005.[1]

Yemen submitted its 15^th Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 report in 2013, covering the period 31 March 2012 to 31 March 2013.

Yemen attended the Twelfth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in December 2012, where it made a statement on mine clearance. Yemen participated in the intersessional Standing Committee meetings held in Geneva in May 2013, where it made statements on mine clearance and victim assistance. At both meetings Yemen responded to allegations of recent antipersonnel mine use (see section on Use below).

Yemen is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), but it participated as an observer in the annual conference of CCW Amended Protocol II on landmines in November 2012.

Production, transfer, stockpile destruction, and retention

Yemen has stated that it has never produced or exported antipersonnel mines. It destroyed the last of its known stockpile of 74,000 to 78,000 antipersonnel mines in April 2002.[2] An additional 30,000 mines were found in November 2006 and destroyed in December 2007.[3] Possible use of antipersonnel mines by government forces in 2011 also raises questions about whether stocks still exist.

In 2013, Yemen again reported that it has retained 3,760 antipersonnel mines for training and research purposes.[4] Yemen still has not reported on the intended purposes and actual uses of its retained mines as agreed by States Parties in 2004.[5] Some of the types of mines used in 2011 are types that are being retained.

Use

In 2013, credible information emerged of antipersonnel mine use at a location north of the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, in late 2011, allegedly by the government’s Republican Guard force. The Monitor previously reported antipersonnel mine use, possibly by government forces, in Sana’a that resulted in casualties in January and March 2012. Additionally, NSAGs are using antipersonnel mines in other locations.

Bani Jamooz

According to witness testimony collected by Human Rights Watch (HRW), evidence gathered by a local human rights organization, and evidence collected by an international journalist, antipersonnel mines were laid around the camps of the Republican Guards in Bani Jarmooz, north of Sana’a, in late 2011.[6]

Local inhabitants and mine victims interviewed by HRW said that they first learned that their farmland was mined around September 2011, notably when Abdulhamid Wasel Ali Wasl, a 14-year-old boy from Bayt al-Auseri village, was killed as the vehicle he was travelling in hit an antivehicle mine on September 2.

According to a resident who became a mine victim in November 2011, in late September or early October 2011 he used binoculars to watch between 10 and 15 soldiers in Republican Guard uniforms lay antipersonnel mines in a nearby wadi, or river bed. HRW interviewed a medic from the district of Milhin who lost his leg in an incident on 30 November 2011 in an antipersonnel minefield outside the camp of the 63rd Brigade of the Republican Guard, which resulted in five casualties.[7] The most recent victim interviewed by HRW was Fawaz Mohsin Saleh Husn, a nine-year-old boy from al-Khabsha village, who was injured by an antipersonnel mine at Bani Jamooz on 12 April 2013.[8] In total, HRW estimates that the mines at Bani Jamooz caused at least 15 civilian casualties, including nine children, in the period from September 2011 to May 2013.

From their descriptions and drawings by local residents, HRW identified PMN antipersonnel mines used at Bani Jamooz, while photographs taken by a journalist indicate that other types of mines have also been found in the area, including a PMD-6 antipersonnel mine.[9]

The mine casualties all occurred in the vicinity of military camps that the 63rd and 81st Brigades of the Republican Guard established at Bani Jarmooz around 26 July 2011 and which remained in place as of September 2013. There has been no other military activity in the area that could explain the presence of the mines. HRW did not observe any fencing or warning signs when it visited the site in April 2013.

In a May 2013 letter to Yemen’s Minister of Defense, HRW urged the government to conduct an immediate investigation into the use of antipersonnel mines at Bani Jarmooz to establish when, by whom, and under what authority the mines were laid and the extent of their deployment. It also called for the affected area to be marked, fenced, and cleared and for comprehensive assistance to be provided to the mine victims.[10] The ICBL wrote to Yemen’s Minister of Foreign Affairs to express its concern and ask for investigations, including on where these mines may have come from.[11]

During the session on compliance at the intersessional Standing Committee meetings of the Mine Ban Treaty in late May 2013, the ICBL said “it is clear that mines have been used” in Yemen, but “not clear whether government or rebel forces have been responsible.” It said that there are indicators that government forces “could be the culprits” and called for a thorough investigation.[12]

Over the course of the week-long intersessional meetings, 15 states as well as Matjaz Kovacic, the Slovenian Ambassador to the UN in Geneva (in his role as the President of the Twelfth Meeting of States Parties) called for an investigation that would report back to States Parties; they also expressed concern at the casualties and urged rapid mine clearance.[13]

On the final day of the intersessional meetings, Yemen’s Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva, Ambassador Ali Mohamed Saeed Majawar, responded to the allegations, stating, “We have contacted the relevant government bodies and Yemen Mission in Geneva. It was agreed that an official investigation will be conducted on the use of AP mines in the mentioned area, by whom and the guilty will be punished. YEMAC [the Yemen Executive Mine Action Center] will implement a level one survey to locate the mines and clear them to stop any further casualties.”[14]

Since that time, the Yemeni government has not provided any information on the status of any investigation.

In September 2013, a government official informed the Monitor that the engineering corps of the Ministry of Defense—as opposed to YEMAC—will clear the minefield due to the location’s proximity to the capital. The representative acknowledged that the affected area at Bani Jamooz has not been cleared and said that the clearance effort “stops and starts…depending on the security situation.”[15]

In a meeting with YEMAC in September 2013, the head of the organization told HRW that because the government is not ensuring the security of a demining assessment team to Bani Jarmooz, no steps have been taken to start the clearing process.[16]

Sana’a

At some point since May 2011, antipersonnel mines were laid inside the building compound of the Ministry of Industry and Trade on Jomhorriya Street in the Hassaba neighborhood of Sana’a. This situation came to public attention after a child was injured by an antipersonnel mine at the site in March 2012.[17] Deminers from the Army Engineering Corps were seen in a video recording obtained by HRW removing at least 25 antipersonnel mines from the compound on 7 March 2012, including one mine type not encountered before in Yemen, either in stock or laid.[18]

Armed clashes, the so-called “Hassaba war,” between members of the al-Ahmar tribal militia and government forces began in the area in May 2011.

Guards from the government’s Central Security forces who were present at the site in March 2012 stated that men who identified themselves as members of the Republican Guard claimed responsibility for laying mines inside the compound (although the date was unspecified) during the process of transferring control of the compound to the Central Security forces. HRW does not have any further information to corroborate this latter claim. It cannot be conclusively determined which forces used the mines at the compound.[19]

At the Twelfth Meeting of States Parties in December 2012, Yemen denied that its army was using antipersonnel landmines and instead blamed NSAGs. Germany stated that it had raised the issue of reported landmine use in Sana’a in 2012 with the general staff of Yemen’s armed forces, who informed Germany that the area was being demined.

At the intersessional meetings in May 2013, Yemen stated that it had investigated the incident in Sana’a but did not find any landmines. It said that assistance has been provided to the child victim.[20]

Use by non-state armed groups

In 2012, there were credible reports of use of antipersonnel mines by NSAGs in Sa’ada governorate and Abyan governorate. It is unclear if antipersonnel mines were still being used in 2013. In its 2013 Article 7 Report, Yemen stated that YEMAC could fulfill its mine action plans in Sa’ada and Abyan in 2012 because “the security situation became much better than 2011.”

Sa’ada

Yemen’s 2013 Article 7 report states that “YEMAC face new challenge in Sada’a governorate after insurgences [sic] war. New kinds of mines made manually by insurgences [sic] and planted in Sada’a, some of them demined by the insurgences [sic] and they missed others. …lot of mine accidents happened and many of people killed and injured.”[21]

Since June 2004, the government of Yemen has been fighting rebel forces led by Abdul-Malik Al-Houthi in the mountainous northern Sada’a governorate, which has seen occasional reports and allegations of the use of antipersonnel mines by both sides.[22] After a 2010 ceasefire opened access to the region, it became apparent that the Houthi rebel forces had used mostly, if not exclusively, so-called home-made antipersonnel mines, otherwise known as victim-activated improvised explosive devices (IEDs).[23]

Haijjah governorate, which borders Sa’ada governorate and where Houthi rebels have been fighting local Sunni tribes backed by the government, has also suffered casualties from landmines.[24] In March 2012, a local representative said that Houthi rebels had planted approximately 3,000 landmines in Kushar and Ahim in Hajjah governorate.[25] In February 2013, a local involved in mine clearance efforts reportedly said, “The way in which the land mines were placed in Ahim is one of the biggest inhibiting factors to their cleanup. Because the weapons were placed unsystematically, they have even killed those accused of planting them.”[26]

In September 2013, a representative of the district of Al-Asha bordering Sa’ada governorate told media that Houthi rebels were planting landmines “in the mountainous areas under their control.”[27]

Abyan

In its 2012 Article 7 report, Yemen listed Abyan governorate in the south of the country as newly mine-affected “because of the war that started between the Yemeni army and Al Qaeda groups.”[28]

According to media reports in June 2012, the governor's office in Zinjibar (the capital of Abyan governorate) said that engineering teams have removed some landmines from around the city and the nearby city of Jaar. Government forces regained control of both cities in May 2012, a year after they were occupied by Ansar al-Sharia, an armed organization linked to al Qaeda.[29] Photographs of weapons recovered by deminers from Ansar al-Sharia positions after the withdrawal, which HRW examined in October 2012, included antipersonnel mines, antivehicle mines, explosive booby-traps, and IEDs.[30]