A six-year-old girl was killed and five villagers were wounded by a landmine on May 25th in the village of U Mu Ta, which is located around two kilometers away from the Thai-Burma in Karen State’s Hlaingbwe Township. The injured villagers are now being treated in a Thai hospital.
According to the Karen Department of Health and Welfare (KDHW)—an organization that provides primary healthcare in the area—four of the wounded villagers are in serious condition. KDHW leader Padoh Eh K’lu Shwe Oo described their condition to Karen News.
“One of the wounded villagers lost his left eye, another villager lost both hands, the other two got seriously injured on their chests, and only one of the villagers had minor injuries.”
According to KDHW sources, the injured villagers told KDHW staff that the incident happened after one of the villagers found an old landmine near his farm, dug it out, and then brought it back to his farm hut. Upon arriving at his hut, some neighbors surrounded the farmer to check out the old landmine, and the mine exploded after some of the villagers hit it with a machete.
The incident occurred at 1pm on May 25th and the injured persons were taken to Thailand’s Tha Song Yang Hospital at 3pm. They were then transferred to Mae Sot Hospital the next day.
The young girl who died from the explosion was identified as Naw Ma De, and the five injured villagers were Saw Jo Pya, Saw Dhi He, Saw Pa Be, Saw Pa Ho, and Saw Jo Kri.
At the time of this writing, the exact type of landmine has yet to be identified, and community leaders speculate that it was either a factory-made landmine or an unexploded mortar shell, as the area where the explosion occurred was attacked multiple times by Burma’s army in collaboration with the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army from 2009-2010.
The attacks displaced over 30,000 civilians in the region and destroyed Ler Per Her, a temporary camp for internally displaced persons (IDP’s) on the bank of the Moei River.
In April 2014, Karen News reported that the “Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor,” a research project launched by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, has documented at least 319 landmine-related casualties in Burma since 1999.
A senior researcher at the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, Moser-Puangsuwan, told Karen News in an interview this April that mine clearance is the only lasting solution to the landmine problem, although “mine risk education” and landmine marking can serve as stop-gap measures before the mines are cleared.
“A first step towards a number of things will be mine clearance, and mine clearance is both a costly and time consuming activity, so the sooner it begins, the better, as far as we are concerned,” Moser-Puangsuwan said. “Nobody should believe that if you do mine risk education in a village you’re eliminating the mine threat. The only way you eliminate the mine threat is by eliminating the mines.”
The full Karen News article from April containing more quotes from Moser-Puangsuwan along with information about landmine clearance issues can be found here.
