Humane mine clearance

The humane mine clearance is distinguished from the military mine clearance: The humane mine clearance aims at eliminating all the mine S and not-exploded ammunition so that the civil population can use these grounds without danger then. The purpose of the military mine clearance on the other hand is to cut through a path, to make a ground useful to fine soldiers. The stress is laid on the speed, and the complete mine clearance of a ground is normally not an end in itself.

The humane mine clearance is the most important component of the Lutte antimines and covers a large range of activities such as the technical investigations, the marking of the zones suspects, the destruction of the mines or ammunition not-exploded, and the handing-over of the déminés grounds. The technical mine clearance thus forms part of a more complete process of humane mine clearance.

The humane mine clearance is codified and regulated by the International standards of Fight against the Mines (in English: International Undermine Action Standards - IMAS) written by the International Center of Humane Mine clearance (GICHD) on behalf of the United Nations.

In addition a center of improvement to the post-conflict actions of mine clearance and depollution (CPADD) was creates in 2002 with Benign in Africa to bring council and assistance to the African countries touched by the problem of the landmines and ammunition not exploded, by proposing formations meeting the needs for the programs of humane mine clearance and the operations of maintenance of peace engaged on the African continent.

There exist several non-governmental organizations specialized in the humane mine clearance, of which Halo Trust, Mines Advisory Group, Swiss Fondation of Mine clearance (FSD), Norwegian People' S Aid and others. However, mineclearing operations are also carried out by commercial operators.

The principal methods of mine clearance are the following ones:

• the manual Mine clearance: Use of a Detecting metal to find the machine, then manual excavation and destruction;
• the mechanical Mine clearance with treedozers and rotary Plagues (Digger_DTR), especially in support of the manual mine clearance. The use of mechanical apparatuses allow to reduce risks for the Démineur S, and to reduce considerably the time necessary for the treatment of a danger zone (in so far as the ground allows the use of such a machine);
• the mine clearance with animals such as the dogs, the rats, etc It acts only of the detection of mines by especially trained animals. This method is sometimes used for the quality control and support of manual Déminage.