HALO Trust
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox organization The HALO Trust (Hazardous Area Life-support Organization) is a humanitarian non-government organisation which primarily works to clear landmines and other explosive devices left behind by conflicts. With over 10,000 staff worldwide,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> HALO has operations in 28 countries. Its largest operation is in Afghanistan,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> where the organisation continues to operate under the Taliban regime that took power in August 2021.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
HALO's global headquarters are located in Thornhill, Dumfries and Galloway, United Kingdom. HALO has offices in Salisbury, UK, Washington, D.C., US and The Hague, Netherlands. Template:TOC limit
HistoryEdit
The organisation was founded in 1988 by Guy Willoughby, former junior officer in the Coldstream Guards and Colin Campbell Mitchell, a British member of Parliament, former colonel in the British Army, and his wife Sue Mitchell. Willoughby won the Robert Burns Humanitarian Award in 2009.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> HALO's first programme began operations in Afghanistan, clearing landmines left by the departing Soviet military.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The next major programme to open, in 1991, was in Cambodia.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> HALO attracted global coverage in January 1997 when Diana Princess of Wales visited a minefield being cleared by HALO employees in Huambo, Angola.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
LeadershipEdit
In February 2015, James Cowan was appointed HALO's chief executive officer. Cowan was a British Army major-general who commanded the 3rd (United Kingdom) Division during a 33-year army career.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Cowan replaced Guy Willoughby who resigned from his role as chief executive of the trust on 11 August 2014.<ref>Template:Cite press release</ref>
Support and financingEdit
HALO's income in 2021-22 was £93.5 million up from £25.63 million in 2015-16.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It receives support from the UK, US and other governments includingn Finland, Norway, Germany, Netherlands, Ireland and New Zealand. In April 2017, the UK announced it would provide £100 million in funding for global landmine programmes for the next three years.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2021 the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office announced plans to cut funding for landmine clearance from £100 million to £25 million.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
AchievementsEdit
The HALO Trust has destroyed over 1.5 million landmines, over 11 million pieces of large calibre ordnance and over 200,000 cluster munitions. Around 10,800 minefields have been cleared and Template:Convert have been made safe from landmines, with another Template:Convert made safe from unexploded and abandoned ordnance.Template:When
AwardsEdit
In 2012, HALO was named the Overall Winner in the Charity Awards by Civil Society Media.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
AfricaEdit
AngolaEdit
For more than 40 years, the population of Angola has been severely impacted by landmines and other explosive remnants of war (ERW), and is believed to still be one of the most mined countries in the world.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Between 1962 and 1972, it is believed that there were a total of 2,571 landmine incidents in Angola.<ref>Alex Vines, 1997, Still Killing. Landmines in Southern Africa, New York, Human Rights Watch</ref> Estimates for the total number of ERW casualties in Angola vary hugely, from 23,000 to 80,000.<ref>http://www.the-monitor.org/en-gb/reports/2015/angola/casualties-and-casualty-assistance.aspx, accessed December 2015</ref>
HALO has worked in Angola since 1994. Considerable progress is being made; even so, HALO estimates that there is still in the region of 10 years' work to rid Angola of all landmines.
To tackle the threat from anti-tank mines on roads, HALO developed the Road Threat Reduction (RTR) system. RTR is a two part process: first, systematic sweeps are made with a large detector to find metal-cased AT mines; this is followed by heavy detonation trailers designed to detonate any minimum metal mine still capable of operating. HALO also fields Weapons & Ammunition Disposal teams working in support of the Angolan army, navy, air force and police to manage the considerable stocks of weapons and ammunition that were amassed during the Angolan Civil War.
By 2015 HALO had cleared more than 780 minefields (Template:Convert of land) and destroyed more than 90,000 landmines and 160,000 items of unexploded ordnance. The majority of munitions destroyed is made up of aircraft bombs but also includes guided missiles and cluster bomb sub-munitions.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> More than a decade after the end of the war, accidents continue to occur and communities continue to be impacted by the threat of mines.
MozambiqueEdit
The Government of Mozambique announced that the country was free of all known landmines in September 2015.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In September 2015, when Mozambique declared itself free of all known landmines,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> HALO announced that it had cleared 171,000 of the country's landmines and employed 1,600 Mozambican men and women over the course of 22 years.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
SomaliaEdit
Somaliland is an unrecognised de facto independent state located in northwest Somalia in the Horn of Africa.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Minelaying occurred during the 1964 Ethiopian–Somali Border War and 1977-78 Ogaden War with Ethiopia, when minefields were laid predominantly along the Ethiopian border. This border and important access routes were heavily mined.<ref name="the-monitor3">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
AsiaEdit
CaucasusEdit
Soviet Legacy minefieldsEdit
In 2009, a national survey of minefields remaining in Georgia found a total of 15 contaminated sites. Of these 15, ten are identified as having a direct humanitarian impact. The clearance of minefields surrounding former Soviet military installations in Georgia is often complicated by significant quantities of waste and rubble. HALO have mechanical mine clearance techniques to clear such sites using adapted civil engineering plant such as armoured excavators and front-loading shovels.<ref name="halotrust6">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Cluster munitions and other UXOEdit
The American NGO CNFA partnered with HALO to target the delivery of agricultural assistance to the farmers of Shida Kartli; this resulted in the region's largest ever apple and wheat harvests.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
HALO completed work in this region in December 2009 having cleared Template:Convert of land across 22 communities. 1,706 cluster munitions and 2,031 other items of ordnance were located and destroyed.<ref name="halotrust6"/>
Nagorno KarabakhEdit
Since 2000 HALO has provided the only large-scale mine clearance capacity in Nagorno Karabakh and over the last 10 years HALO has cleared over 236 square kilometres of contaminated land and returned it to previously impacted communities. By mid-2010, HALO had found and destroyed in Nagorno Karabakh over 10,000 landmines, 10,000 cluster munitions and 45,000 other explosive items.<ref name="asbarez1">Template:Cite news</ref>
In July 2011 Azerbaijani government blacklisted and banned the organization from Azerbaijan in protest for its mine clearing operation in disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh. Mine removal equipment that was headed to Afghanistan was impounded and sent to Georgia.<ref name="Azerbaijan blacklists British mine-clearance charity">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Baku Confiscates Afghanistan-Bound Mine Clearance Equipment">Template:Cite news</ref>
Representative of the leader of Nagorno-Karabakh on special assignments Boris Avagyan claimed that HALO Trust handed over minefield maps to Turkish special services, which, according to him, helped Azerbaijan’s successful military operations during the second Karabakh war in the autumn of 2020. Ayvagyan claimed that under the pretext of studying dangerous areas, this organization carried out reconnaissance work throughout the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. Opposition MP Naira Zohrabyan supported these claims. The spokesperson for the de facto president of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh said that Ayvagyan's accusations do not represent the opinion of the government and that he was acting unilaterally.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> HALO Trust said the accusation was "an absolute lie".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
ChechnyaEdit
Template:See also In 1997, HALO began working in Chechnya, training Chechens to remove landmines placed in the 1994–1996 war between Chechnya and Russia. It was forced to stop after a second war broke out and four deminers were killed by rocket artillery. Russia accused HALO of providing rebels with military training, but HALO representatives denied the charge, stating that they only provided their standard training in demining.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Middle EastEdit
Jesus' baptism siteEdit
In May 2016 HALO announced that it had secured approval from the Israeli and Palestinian authorities as well as eight religious denominations to clear landmines from the claimed site of the Baptism of Christ at Qasr al-Yahud (West Bank) / Al-Maghtas (Jordan).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Southeast AsiaEdit
CambodiaEdit
Template:See also Over 63,500 landmine and ERW casualties have been recorded in Cambodia since 1979,<ref name="the-monitor2">Landmine Monitor Report 2009 (Cambodia:Scope of the Problem:Casualties), online at http://www.the-monitor.org/</ref> with over 25,000 amputees Cambodia has the highest ratio per capita in the world.<ref>Statistics care of the Cambodia Mine/ERW Victim Information System (CMVIS), contact Mr. CHHIV Lim, CMVIS Project Manager, [email protected]</ref> Despite a considerable reduction in casualty numbers over recent years, down from 875 in 2005<ref>Landmine Monitor Report 2006 (Cambodia:Landmine/UXO Casualties), online at http://www.the-monitor.org/</ref> to 269 in 2008,<ref name="the-monitor2"/> Cambodia's mine and ERW problem still represents a major impediment to the social and economic development of the country. However, given more than 18 years of humanitarian demining, the landmine threat is now largely concentrated in just 21 north-west border districts.<ref>Landmine Monitor Report 2009 (Cambodia:Scope of the Problem:Contamination), online at http://www.the-monitor.org/</ref>
IN 2010 HALO Cambodia had over 1,150 national staff working in the provinces of Battambang, Banteay Meanchey, Otdar Meanchey and Pailin. Recruiting, training and then deploying female and male deminers from the mine affected districts means that the landmine contaminated communities remain an integral component in the clearance process. Living and working in these communities, deminers are methodically ridding Cambodia of the landmine menace.<ref name="halotrust2">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Between 1991 and May 2010, HALO Cambodia cleared over Template:Convert of landmine contaminated land whilst destroying over 229,000 landmines, 139,200 items of large calibre ammunition and 1.28 million bullets.<ref name="halotrust2"/>
Alongside clearance work HALO's survey teams have continued to systematically clarify the nature and magnitude of landmine contamination in Cambodia. The current focus of HALO's survey teams is the Baseline Survey of Cambodia, a Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority (CMAA) led process to quantify the true nature of the remaining mine threat in Cambodia.<ref>According to the Royal Government of Cambodia's Mine Ban Treaty Extension Request, the Baseline Survey 'aims to supersede previous L1S contamination and to define remaining contamination through a national land classification system'. Page 5, Kingdom of Cambodia, Extension Request to the President of the Ninth Meeting of the States Parties, Mine Ban Treaty.</ref>
LaosEdit
One of the results of the Vietnam War (1964 to 1973) is the magnitude of the UXO problem remaining in Laos. During the conflict, the country was subject to heavy aerial bombardment, resulting in the world's largest contamination from unexploded submunitions. The US estimates that it dropped over 2 million tons of bombs, including 270 million cluster munitions (known locally as "bombies"), during this period. During the same period, an unknown number of anti-personnel and anti-tank mines were laid along the country's borders and around military bases and airfields.<ref name=Monitor_Laos>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
While the number of mine and UXO related accidents continue to decrease from over 200 per year in the 1990s to about 50 in 2018,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> over 25% of all villages in Laos still remain contaminated, primarily with UXO.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
HALO's survey, explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) and UXO clearance program is focused on the four most contaminated districts in Savannakhet Province. As of 2017, its staff numbered 303 (45% women), forming 10 clearance teams and 14 survey teams. For 2018 it had permission to expand the efforts to 14 districts for a total of 538 villages.<ref name=Monitor_Laos/>
South and Central AsiaEdit
AfghanistanEdit
On 9 June 2021, a HALO Trust De-Mining Team was reportedly attacked in Afghanistan, with 10 team members killed and more than a dozen wounded. The Afghanistan government blamed the Taliban for the attack. The militant group denied any responsibility. HALO Trust stated that the Taliban actually came to their aid and scared off the assailants. ISIL-K claimed credit for the attack.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Sri LankaEdit
HALO has been working in Sri Lanka since 2002, with 1,045 demining staff currently in the provinces of Jaffna, Kilinochchi and Mulaittivu. HALO teams conduct manual and mechanical mine clearance alongside survey and explosive ordnance disposal (EOD).<ref name="halotrust3">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In December 2015 The HALO Trust announced that it had cleared 200,000 landmines in Sri Lanka.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
EuropeEdit
KosovoEdit
Mine laying, predominantly by the army of the Former Republic of Yugoslavia but also by the Kosovo Liberation Army, took place primarily in 1999. In addition to the many items of UXO resulting from the conflict, the NATO bombing campaign in 1999 left unexploded cluster munitions in many locations across Kosovo.<ref name="autogenerated1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
HALO maintained demining and battle area clearance operations between 2004 and 2006 and conducted a country-wide Community Liaison Survey in 2006 and 2007. This survey identified 126 areas still in need of clearance, above and beyond the 46 areas recorded in the national database. HALO commenced a third phase of clearance operations in May 2008.<ref name=autogenerated1 />
In total since 1999, HALO has cleared over Template:Convert of mine contaminated land and Template:Convert of cluster munition contaminated land. In the process, HALO has destroyed 4,330 mines and 5,377 cluster submunitions and other explosive items.<ref name=autogenerated1 />
Cluster munitions have an impact upon infrastructure projects and HALO has found and destroyed cluster munitions to clear the way for road widening projects. Occasionally clearance cannot keep up with development and at least one cluster munition was uncovered by road construction teams in 2010.<ref name=autogenerated1 />
The World Bank's Kosovo Poverty Assessment 2007 classifies 45 per cent of Kosovo's population as "poor", living on less than €1.42 per day, with a further 18 per cent considered to be vulnerable to poverty.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> 15% of the population is extremely poor, which is defined as "individuals who have difficulty meeting their basic nutritional needs".
HALO currently has three teams and a total of 65 demining staff accredited and deployed clearing minefields and cluster munition strikes.<ref name=autogenerated1 />
UkraineEdit
Since 2016 HALO is involved in clearing landmines laid during the Russo-Ukrainian War.<ref>Template:In lang Echoes of War. How do the Ukrainians renovate the Donbas, Ukrayinska Pravda (10 July 2018)</ref> Since the Russian invasion in February 2022, HALO continues to conduct clearance operations across Ukraine, employing over 600 Ukrainian staff. <ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
South AmericaEdit
ColombiaEdit
The Colombian military have now completed clearance of 31 of the minefields they laid but an estimated 10,000 suspected NSAG minefields remain. These have largely been the reason why Colombia now has similar landmine casualties to Afghanistan.<ref name="halotrust7">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In 2013, Colombia had between 4.9 and 5.5 million internally displaced people (IDPs), the world's largest number.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> These populations are now experiencing high casualty and accident rates as they return to their areas of former residence.<ref name="halotrust7"/>
The Colombian government formally invited HALO Trust in June 2009 to implement a large-scale civilian clearance program which is currently in the survey and assessment stages.<ref name="halotrust7"/>
HALO is the first civilian organisation to have a formal agreement and registration with the Colombian government and is currently surveying prioritised mined areas in preparation for humanitarian clearance operations.<ref name="halotrust7"/>
ReferencesEdit
External linksEdit
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