Royal Engineers help Colombia clear its minefields

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Military Operations

Royal Engineers help Colombia clear its minefields
30 Nov 07
The landmine problem in Afghanistan and Iraq is a well known threat to the British military, let alone the local people that live there. But the country with the highest number of landmine victims in the world is Colombia, where a team of British Royal Engineers has recently been passing on their mine clearing experience to the Colombian military. Report by Danny Chapman.

 
A Columbian Army Engineer using his training to locate and clear land mines
[Picture: MOD]
Colombia accounts for 57 per cent of all the world's military landmine victims, with an average of two Service personnel, as well as three civilians injured or killed every day. In 2006, there were over 1,000 mine casualties in the South American country that has been embroiled in a civil war for the best part of half a century.

Mine clearing though is in its infancy in Colombia, and according to Captain Camilla Blott, a British Royal Engineer who recently led a short term training team there, it?s not getting any better:

"As long as there are mines in the ground they're always going to be a threat," she says. "The mine situation in Colombia is a horrendous problem. The problem that the Colombian soldiers and civilians have to deal with on a daily basis is similar to what our troops have to deal with in Afghanistan, if not worse."

The Colombian Government signed the Ottawa Mine Ban treaty in 1997. Under the treaty terms the Government has a deadline to clear all anti-personnel mines in areas under their jurisdiction or control by 2011 (swathes of Colombia are controlled by the FARC armed guerrilla organisation), and it is this task that the British Royal Engineers are giving assistance to.

The experience of de-mining in places like Afghanistan and the Balkans has enabled the Royal Engineers, from the Mine Information Training Centre (MITC) at the Royal School of Military Engineering, to build up a level of expertise that the Colombians are making use of. Highlighting a need for more support in mines awareness and clearing in Colombia, the MITC have been sending short term training teams there since 2005.

 
A British Royal Engineer (front) instructing members of the Colombian de-mining company
[Picture: MOD]
They have been training members of a Colombian de-mining company consisting of around 130 Army Engineers which has been set up over the last two years. Owing to the fragile security situation in Colombia, all de-mining is carried out by the military.

Although the main problem in Colombia is nuisance mining and improvised devices planted by non-State Armed Forces in places that include wells and even schools, the focus for the Royal Engineer teams has been to train the Colombian engineers to clear the 34 minefields laid around key military and government installations by the military:

"You know what you are getting, roughly where the mines are and what devices have been used. The mines laid by non-government forces however are all over the place; you need specialist EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) and Search Skills to deal with these."

The broader aim of the Royal Engineer teams is to give the Colombians the knowledge to create a sustainable capability to instruct themselves, and Captain Blott has just returned from conducting a Train the Trainer Course where 26 students were taught Humanitarian Mine Clearance to international mine action standards in order to instruct future de-miners.

"We don't have the capacity to keep going out there," said Captain Blott. "They need to be able to teach themselves and in the future we'll go out there and validate the courses until they're happy on their own."

 
Many members of the Colombian de-mining company know people who have been killed or injured by landmines
[Picture: MOD]
The MITC, based at Gibraltar Barracks in Minley, Surrey, consists of three permanent staff; a Captain, Sergeant and Warrant Officer. Their main priority is to deliver mine awareness training to British personnel from all three Services, in order to minimise the risk of landmine casualties on operations.

They also help to run courses at the International Mine Action Training Centre (IMATC) in Kenya which was set up in 2003 and is sponsored by the British Government to teach Humanitarian Mine Clearance across East Africa. Something along the lines of which Captain Blott would like to see in Colombia. Indeed a series of presentations she ran in Colombia about the importance of a Mine Action Centre resulted in the country's Vice President visiting the Kenyan IMATC.

In the meantime the company of Colombian de-miners that the British Royal Engineers have been training are nothing if not dedicated to their work:

"They're superb," said Captain Blott, "highly professional and exceptionally enthusiastic. Because they face this landmine threat daily they have a great background with which to understand the dangers. Many of them have known people to be killed or injured through mines or even been a victim themselves.

"It is very humbling they come into work each day, for little money, and they remain positive about what they're doing despite the enormous risk that they face."

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