The three lines of mines form a zigzag pattern. There are thousands of mines, each one of them powerful enough to maim or kill. Many of them are visible because of a small green circle at the top: though this would not be obvious if you were moving at speed or did not know what to look for.
This minefield, southwest of the city of Raqqa, in northern Syria, is one of the many legacies of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which was ousted in December after 14 years of war.
It is at least six kilometres wide: within each 3 sq m area there are six anti-personnel mines and four anti-tank mines. It is believed the mines were laid to protect an oil pipeline.
Civilians have tried to remove the mines before. One man successfully extracted 30: the 31st killed him, professional deminers working here say. A motorbike driver was also killed, and the driver of a pick-up truck, they add. A Syrian Red Crescent truck was another casualty, though its diver miraculously survived because the wheel on the passenger’s side set off the explosion.
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A weight of between 63-120kg is necessary to set off the anti-tank mines, the deminers say, although rust will make them more sensitive. It only takes 3-6kg to set off one of the anti-personnel mines.
This minefield was discovered recently. It is a reminder of an ongoing threat, nearly three decades after the 1997 Ottawa Treaty banned the production, use and stockpiling of anti-personnel mines.
The treaty, signed by representatives of 120 countries, was widely celebrated as a monumental achievement. That year, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and American political activist Jody Williams, for getting the treaty over the line.
“Landmines are the scourge of poor countries,” the prize’s website says. In 1997, 100 million undetonated anti-personnel mines remained buried in 60 countries following wars and armed conflicts, it adds. “Their purpose is to maim or kill soldiers, but it is the civilian population that suffers most.”
Despite all this, long-time signatories have begun to pull out of the treaty. On June 19th, Finland’s parliament voted in favour of withdrawal, and on June 25th, Poland’s parliament did the same.
On Sunday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he had signed a decree to pull out of the Ottawa agreement.
In March, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania had all issued a joint statement saying they recommended withdrawing from the Ottawa Treaty because “military threats to Nato member states bordering Russia and Belarus have significantly increased” and they wanted to send “a clear message: our countries are prepared and can use every necessary measure to defend our territory and freedom”.
Finnish president Alexander Stubb also defended the move, saying “we have as our neighbouring country an aggressive, imperialist state called Russia, which itself is not a member of the Ottawa Treaty and which itself uses landmines ruthlessly”.
Advocates for the landmine ban are stunned by these decisions. Josephine Dresner, director of policy with the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) non-governmental organisation, calls it “incredibly disappointing news given the enormous amount of progress that has been made in preventing the use and circulation of landmines over the past 30 years”.
Advocates worry this is part of a larger trend, with the rules of war and international humanitarian norms being eroded more broadly. “As we all know, conflict and geopolitical tension is also escalating elsewhere, including the appalling situation in Gaza,” Dresner says. “In this context, it is impossible not to feel that we are going backwards, seeing threats to the international rules-based order, and most importantly to the frameworks that have long been in place to protect civilians.”
Dresner hopes “these states will refrain from actually using landmines and even more so from bringing them back into wider circulation, especially commercial trade”.
Before the 1997 treaty entered into force, she says, “global casualties were estimated at 22,000 a year. By 2016 this had dropped to less than 1,000 – a reduction of almost 95 per cent.” Since then, she says, the numbers have been rising again.
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The annual Landmine Monitor report found that at least 1,983 people were killed and 3,663 injured globally in 2023, the last year for which full figures are available. Some 84 per cent of these were civilians, and 37 per cent were children.
Syria had the second highest number of casualties, after Myanmar, and was followed by Afghanistan and Ukraine. Dresner says mines are also being used extensively in Yemen, while there are widespread reports of their use in Sudan.
“In addition, the use of improvised landmines, or victim-activated IEDs [improvised explosive devices], by non-state actors is significantly affecting a number of countries in Africa, especially around the Sahel region: Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali and Nigeria,” she says.
Russia has used landmines extensively in Ukraine since its full-scale invasion in 2022. Many of the Assad regime’s landmines in Syria are also thought to have been Russian-made. In 2012, Human Rights Watch said the size and origin of Syria’s landmine stockpile was not known, “but it is believed to consist mainly of Soviet/Russian-manufactured mines, such as the PMN-2 anti-personnel mines and TMN-46 anti-vehicle mines.”
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) documented the deaths of at least 3,521 civilians as a result of landmine explosions in Syria between March 2011 and the end of 2024. That included 931 children and 362 women, along with nine media workers, eight medical workers and seven civil defence personnel. The organisation said other parties to Syria’s long conflict “also commonly used landmines”.
“Mines are cheap ... It’s the cheapest type of ordinance to manufacture. It’s the cheapest item that the military can use to deny access to the enemy,” says Riaan Boshoff, a standards and training manager with MAG, which took on the task of clearing the northern Syrian Assad-era minefield we are standing in.
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Landmines continue to inflict harm long after a conflict is over. “It’s removing them that is really expensive,” says Najwa Al Janada, MAG’s programme development manager.
It is tedious and costly work, yet those who carry it out say if the explosives remain in the ground, they are certain to cause suffering and misery to innocent people.
Syria has never been a party to the Ottawa Treaty. Human rights organisations, including SNHR and Human Rights Watch, are calling on the new Syrian government to commit to the treaty and the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Dresner also suggests that former dictator Assad – now living in exile in Russia – could still be prosecuted for overseeing the planting of mines.
In Syria, she assesses, “the way in which landmines have been used is a breach of broader international humanitarian law, given the impact on civilians and civilian objects. So this can, and should, be a part of a broader case against [the] regime for attacks on and harm caused to civilians.”
