News – February 2026

February 27, 2026

Interior Minister Davor Božinović announced Friday that Croatia is officially free of landmines. Thirty-one years after the end of the Homeland War, all known minefields have been cleared — a major milestone for the country. The decades-long effort came at a heavy cost. Over three decades of painstaking and dangerous work, 208 people lost their lives, ...

February 27, 2026

To mark Poland’s official withdrawal from the Ottawa Convention or the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty, Julia Głębocka, Human rights researcher for Amnesty International Poland, reflects on what the return of these indiscriminate weapons means for human rights in Europe. Not so long ago, in 2020, the European Union was funding mine relief efforts in Lebanon and ...

February 26, 2026

The Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority (CMAA) has called for careful, objective, and responsible handling of reports concerning the discovery of anti-personnel mines along the Cambodia-Thailand border. In a statement issued on Thursday, the CMAA reaffirmed Cambodia’s full commitment to its obligations under the Ottawa Convention, stressing that the country has not laid any ...

February 26, 2026

Burkina Faso has been one of the central battlegrounds in the Sahel’s expanding jihadist conflict for more than a decade. The al-Qaeda-affiliated coalition Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) is one of the main armed groups operating there, alongside Islamic State-linked groups. The violence has caused widespread displacement, tens of thousands of deaths, and a deteriorating ...

February 26, 2026

A suspected bomb uncovered on a building site in Hungerford has been confirmed as a WWI shell. Police and bomb disposal experts attended the site in Charnham Street and carried out a controlled explosion. A Thames Valley Police spokesperson said: “We have been called to a suspected piece of possible WW1/WW2 ordnance at a building site ...

February 25, 2026

Engineering teams have begun removing mines and unexploded ordnance from the archaeological site of Ruwayha in southern Idlib, the Syrian Arab Republic’s state news agency SANA reported on Tuesday. The operation is part of a broader plan by the Idlib Directorate of Antiquities to protect and preserve historical sites across the Jabal Al-Zawiya region, which includes ...

February 24, 2026

An explosion occurred at a school in the city of Dnipro on Feb. 23 during a classroom demonstration of ammunition, injuring two children, according to regional police. Authorities said the incident happened while ammunition samples were being shown to students, when an unexpected blast and heavy smoke filled the room. Police, investigators, and juvenile officers quickly ...

February 24, 2026

Syria’s Minister of Emergency Management and Disaster Response, Raed al-Saleh, met a Ukrainian delegation in Damascus to discuss expanding cooperation on clearing landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO), the ministry said. The Ukrainian delegation was led by Ihor Bezkrovainyi, director of Ukraine’s Humanitarian Demining Center and deputy minister of economy and agriculture. Talks focused on strengthening Syria’s ...