In January, two boys aged five and eight were critically injured when a family tool exploded a few minutes after their father had used it as a “hammer”.
For two years, the family from Murove Village in Manicaland on the Mozambique border had unknowingly been using an explosive device as a hammer for their chores around the home. The explosive was brought home by the boys from the bush where they had taken livestock for grazing.
Probably thinking it was scrap metal, their father found use for the object not realising it was an explosive device.
In a separate incident, but during the same month in the same village, twin brothers were killed by a mortar bomb explosion while their playmate, a girl, suffered a fractured leg. They had been playing with it, thinking it was a toy they had picked up.
Murove Village was on a critical route for Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (Zanla) during the liberation war. Guerrilla fighters, arms and ammunition went through this area from Mozambique. To stop them, the Rhodesian army planted landmines.
Landmines planted by the Rhodesian Forces in the 1970s are still injuring and killing civilians in the three provinces that border Mozambique and Zambia – Manicaland, Mashonaland East and Matabeleland North.
At least 1,500 people and 120,000 livestock have been lost since 1980 through landmine explosions.
According to government records, 42.7 million square metres (4,269 hectares) of land are contaminated with landmines. With the recent heavy rains, the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) says more landmines as well as ammunition that had been buried could be washed to the surface, exposing civilians to yet more danger. Hence a campaign to educate the public about landmines and weapons of war has been rolled out in affected areas.
A report by the US department of state bureau of political-military affairs released last week says 41 years after Zimbabwe gained independence, landmines are still “densely” populated in communities.
“Zimbabwe still retains dense anti-personnel minefields along its borders with Mozambique and Zambia that kill and injure civilians and constrain economic development, particularly by killing livestock and preventing agricultural activities,” reads the report.
At least 1,500 people and 120,000 livestock have been lost since 1980 through landmine explosions.
The US and Switzerland, through their demining contracted partners such as The HALO Trust and Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA), cleared a combined 6,551 landmines and other explosive remnants of war (ERW) in Manicaland and Mashonaland Central provinces last year alone.
In a recent joint statement, US ambassador to Zimbabwe Brian A Nichols and Niculin Jaeger, the Swiss ambassador to Malawi and Zambia, said they had added another partner, Anti-Persoonsmijnen Ontmijnende (APOPO), to work in the region.
APOPO will clear the cordon sanitaire minefield that includes the Sengwe Wildlife Corridor, connecting Gonarezhou and Kruger National parks.
“The project will also help the free movement of wildlife within the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, spanning the borders of Mozambique, SA, and Zimbabwe. APOPO estimates it will find and destroy about 15,300 landmines and clear 7km² of land by 2025,” the statement said.
Zimbabwe Mine Action Centre (ZIMAC) has a revised plan to clear all landmines by 2025. This ambitious project will require a budget of $65.6m (R937.5m). Despite low financial support from the government, it is committed to the cause.
“There is a high degree of national ownership with the government continuing to provide $500,000 (R7.146m) annually to the mine action programme, despite increasing financial hardship in the country,” said ZIMAC.
ZIMAC estimates that at least 11km² remains contaminated with anti-personnel mines.
From 1998 to 2020, the US invested more than $24m for conventional weapons destruction (CWD) in Zimbabwe. The assistance released 9.1 million square metres (910 hectares) of contaminated land to productive use and destroyed 42,861 landmines and other ERW.
Mozambique, Malawi and Lesotho are some of the many countries that have received US financial support to decommission landmines.
At independence in 1980, Zimbabwe was left with seven major mined areas along its borders with Mozambique and Zambia, and one inland minefield laid by the Rhodesian Army.
Initially, anti-personnel mines were laid in dense belts (on average 2,500 mines per kilometre of frontage) to form a so-called “cordon sanitaire”, with up to 5,500 mines per kilometre in some places.
Over time, this cordon sanitaire was breached or subject to erosion. In response, in many sections, a second belt of “ploughshare” directional fragmentation mines protected by anti-personnel mines was laid behind the cordon sanitaire.
Anti-vehicle mines were used extensively by armed groups, but most were detonated by vehicles or have since been cleared.
Additional reporting by Kenneth Matimaire
