Team:Edinburgh/mapxmlnepal



Nepal <![CDATA[Nepal is affected by landmines, almost all antipersonnel, as well as by ERW. The decade of civil war that ended in November 2006 left Nepal widely contaminated by IEDs, used by both Nepal’s army and police, and by the CPN/M. The army also emplaced antipersonnel mines. The Security Forces, which includes both the Nepal Army and the Armed Police Force, laid 53 antipersonnel minefields and a further 300 or so areas are protected with command-detonated devices (including IEDs), as defensive perimeters around military installations, police posts, and infrastructure. As of June 2008, five of the minefields had been fully cleared (two in the Central region and one each in the Eastern, Western, and Far Western regions), two partially cleared (both in the Western region), and an eighth was being worked on.

The total size of mined areas is not known, but according to the UN Mission in Nepal (UNMIN), the typical size of the minefields was between 10,000 and 20,000m2.

IEDs produced by the CPN/M—including socket bombs (improvised hand grenades), “bucket” bombs, and pipe bombs—are said to account for most of the contamination and have caused an estimated 90% of civilian casualties from victim-activated devices. However, a data gathering project in the Central region conducted by ArmorGroup, a British commercial company, over five months through March 2008 found ERW contamination on only a limited scale.

In 2007, the Informal Service Sector (INSEC), a Nepali NGO, recorded at least 104 civilian mine/IED/ERW casualties in 42 incidents, including 13 people killed and 91 injured. The vast majority of casualties (72%) were male. Boys accounted for 38% of all casualties and 48% of total casualties were children.

Bystanding or being nearby an explosion caused 50 casualties, followed by handling out of curiosity (19). Children were 89% (17) of all handling casualties, an increase from 82% in 2006. Incidents occurred mostly in agricultural areas (36) or by the home (35). Most casualties were reported in the Eastern region (44) where a single incident injured 32 people. On 16 March, a police officer was moving abandoned IEDs in an agricultural area in Jhapa district when one of the devices exploded while a large number of civilians were standing nearby. Other regions recording casualties were the Western and Central regions (18 each), the Mid-Western region (17) and the Far Western region (seven).

The casualty rate in 2007 was a sharp decrease compared to 169 civilian casualties (39 killed, 130 injured) in 2006, particularly in the Far Western region which saw 35 casualties in 2006. When considering that a single incident caused 32 casualties, the decrease is even more significant. The decreased casualty rate was said to be due to increased clearance and emergency mine/ERW risk education (RE), and media attention to incidents both locally and nationally.

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