Armistice Day, 11/11/1918, was rightly commemorated last weekend around the world. At last, after four years of terrible industrialised fighting and unprecedented death and destruction, the war to end wars was over.
An old weapon, the underground tunnelled mine had been perfected and was used with devastating effect at Messines Ridge in 1917 when 19 nearly simultaneous explosions of a massive 455 tonnes of explosives killed an estimated 10,000 German soldiers. (ref 1). But as the war drew to a close, these traditional mines were being replaced by the new much smaller, at first improvised and then factory made, landmines. These were placed in the ground to defend against the new chariots of war, trench busting tanks. They have become an indispensable part of the military arsenal.
In the late 1960’s and 70’s our family made an annual visit
to my aunt and uncles farm at Burgh le Marsh. We visited nearby Skegness and
played on the beach for days on end. I have many happy memories but a couple of
things fascinated me, the faint memories of WW2. A small number of ex-army
landing craft which rolled along the beach giving rides to fun loving
tourists, and a disarmed sea mine acting as a collection box to help
shipwrecked sailors. Old military equipment being put to a better use, memories
of a distant war. But it was only 25 years since the end of WWII, the beaches
at and around Skegness had been part of the 1,997 minefields laid around the UK
in 1940 (ref 2). In total about 350,000 mines were laid to prevent an invasion, and
then removed, often with considerable difficulty and cost in human life. Around
Britain accidents happened through the 1950’s with residual munitions, I don’t
recall hearing of any in my lifetime, certainly they weren’t frequent. However,
whilst writing this I found that in a controlled explosion an old anti-tank
mine was destroyed at Gibraltar Point not far from Skegness in 2015 (ref 3).
The de-miners had done a good, brave, but imperfect job.
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| Driving into the Tibesti on a white stone lined road |
As we entered the Tibesti from Zoar-Ke last year we saw a
destroyed tank and other vehicles from another past war, the Libyan- Chad war
of the 1980’s. We also saw the white stones by the roadside which mark areas of
potential minefields. It was all from some conflict some 30 years before and
yet as we entered Bardai there were zones either side of the road which were
unsafe to drive on. It all seemed a little unreal, but we asked questions and
were told that as long as we stayed on the roads we were reassured that we
would be fine, that there were no mines in Bardai itself, and there were
many less accidents than there had been a few years ago. The local demining
team was still active and once in a while there was a controlled explosion of collected
anti-tank mines. The people in danger we were told, were incoming goldminers who
didn’t believe the local Teda when they said that a zone was dangerous.
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| A controlled exposion in the Tibesti -MAG |
The task of demining the Tibesti is more difficult than the
beaches in the UK. MAG have worked here since 2004 (ref 4). The British
minefields had been marked and surrounded by barbed wire and other defences so
as to avoid accidental entry to the minefields. The mines were laid above the
tide line and in many cases the mines were wired together to facilitate eventual
removal and prevent migration. I don’t know how the minefields in the Tibesti
were marked, but mines in wadis get washed downstream when the dry river beds
flood, and through years of rebellion and civil unrest mines have been lifted
from their original sites and used to booby trap roads. For these there are no
reference charts. Naturally the roads, dirt tracks, have been swept for mines,
but nothing is static.
One day we went to a neighbouring village for a wedding,
there were many pickups parked by the mosque. Our Teda friend parked as neatly
as possible to save space but was told to go no further forward as there was a
mine buried, in a small area marked by white stones, right in the middle of the
village. An hour or so later, on leaving, our vehicle was hemmed in, and so a
man stood in the circle told us to drive forward over it, there’s nothing here
he said. We decided to wait all the same, best not to take a risk. Is there
really a mine there, who knows, apart from the man who laid it.
A short while later there was an explosion on a well
travelled road to another village, just up the wadi from Bardai. A large lorry heading
to market with many passengers on top had set off an anti-tank mine. Thankfully
only the tyre was blown off, perhaps the mine had sunk deep into the sand. A
fortunate escape, but all the same there was an impressive hole. A colleague of
mine from the hospital lives about 200m off the road at that point on a small
rocky hill. He doesn’t have a car but rides a motorbike.
So how common are landmine accidents around the world? The Nobel Peace Prize winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines collates statistics from each country and publishes The landmine and cluster munitions monitor. (ref4). These and following statistics for Chad come from their 2017 report.
Around the world in 2016 there was an increase in the number
of incidents related to mines and discarded munitions with 8605 casualties, at
least 2089 were fatal. Most casualties were civilians (78%) and 1544 (42%) of
those were children. These are the highest figures since the Mine Ban treaty of
1999 which bans the laying of mines that are activated by human contact (antipersonnel
mines) but not yet those activated by
vehicles.
There have been 3011 casualties recorded in Chad by the
Landmines and Cluster Munitions Monitor with 1179 deaths. Recently a decreasing
trend has been apparent with 27 casualties in 2016, with no reported deaths.
Thirteen were caused by mines and 12 by old shells etc and in 2 cases it was
not declared.
In the last 6 months these numbers on a graph have become
real to me. Twice I have been called to the hospital to treat young men who
have been in a pick-up truck that ran over a mine whilst off road out of town. They
both died of multiple blast injuries. Whilst I was in the UK in the summer
another two people died in another couple of incidents. In the first a young
man who took a different route into town because of the flooded wadi, and in
the second the wife of a friend of the ADP was killed. She had been at a busy
meeting place under a tree on the edge of a local village and was killed as she
was driven away. All of these were local
Teda people and all caused by anti-tank mines laid over 30 years ago, but which
can still be laid under the Ottawa Protocol.
A fifth young casualty was a gold miner. He was at work when
he came across something unusual, a plastic canister that he didn’t recognise.
It was an antipersonnel mine. These are designed to maim and not kill as the
injured require help from colleagues further depleting an attacking force. It
blew up in his left hand. He arrived at the hospital the next day after a long
drive with improvised bandages over both of his hands, he looked terrible. Once
he was stabilised we operated the same day, amputating the remains of his left
hand at the wrist, and cleaning up his badly injured right hand plus all the
other shrapnel wounds and flash burns to his chest arms and legs. He was cared
for by his friends who had to feed and wash him every day. I was amazed that
how cheerful the young victim was as I visited him. He was it seems simply glad
to have survived and to be receiving treatment. What more he was going to get a
functional right hand. After 2 more trips to the operating theatre and finally
skin grafts to his thumb and fingers he was able to hold a spoon and feed
himself. He left the hospital exactly one month later returning to his home
town in the east of Chad.
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| A young man who doesn’t smile for photos |
These five families and many more like them will never have
the possibility of forgetting the danger of landmines.
- World War I underground:
unearthing the hidden tunnel war. Peter Jackson. BBC News . Magazine 10
June 2011
- Evans, Roly (2017) “World
War II Coastal Minefields in the United Kingdom” Journal of Conventional
Weapons Destruction Vol 21 Iss 1 Article 9
- Anti tank bomb explodes at
Gibraltar point- Skegness Standard .Facebook Jan 14 2015
- w.w.w.maginternational.org/what-we-do/where-we-work/chad/
- Landmine Monitor www.the-monitor.org
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