The study by Action on Armed Violence identified 43% of 112 operational deminer deaths 2005 to 2021 were not recorded in international demining organisation annual reports. Notably, almost two-thirds of all deaths came from one organisation. The catalyst for the review was a 2021 spate of de-miner deaths making the year the most lethal for the international humanitarian demining sector since records began. The examination of the patterns of injuries to deminers identified that the deficit of deminer casualty data has potentially obscured the magnitude and complexities of this problem. Afghanistan has proven to be the highest risk country for deminers, with 23 fatalities since 2005, including 12 killed in a terrorist attack. Iraq experienced the most consistent rate of fatal demining incidents since 2016 averaging one death per year. During the past 17 years, the main cause of deminer deaths has been targeted attacks resulting in 36 deaths, proximity detonations 34 deaths and RTAs 28 deaths; both RTAs and targeted attacks often resulted in multiple deaths in a single incident. The number of deaths should be viewed in the context of humanitarian demining being inherently high risk, frequently undertaken in non permissive environments with poor infrastructure and road traffic conditions. Nevertheless transparency of the circumstances surrounding serious incidents allows our profession to learn and mitigate risk.
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