This week, represented by Brigadier Flávio Luiz de Oliveira Pinto, Director General of the Secretariat, the Inter-American Defense Board has been participating in several events related to the work of Humanitarian Demining in Colombia.
Since 2006, the IADB has supported the efforts of the Colombian authorities to reduce the effects of antipersonnel mines and improvised devices, which have plagued the country's population for nearly six decades, leaving thousands of victims, including dead and wounded (more than 12,000 in the last 18 years alone).
We are all extremely proud to be part of this fight and this beautiful story!
The IADB's contribution is part of the efforts made by various institutions and organizations working on humanitarian demining in Colombia, led by AICMA/OAS and the Colombian Armed Forces.
The results achieved represent a strong incentive for those engaged in this difficult but essential humanitarian activity: between 2006 and 2023, the annual number of victims caused by landmines, including deaths and injuries, fell from 1,224 to 95, while Colombia dropped from second place in the ranking of countries with the most landmines in the world, to ninth place. During this period, more than 30,000 mines were neutralized and the surface area freed from this terrible scourge reached the mark of more than 14 million square meters (equivalent to 1,700 football fields). The proportion of Colombian municipalities free of mines practically doubled, reaching 83% of the total.
The IADB's humanitarian demining work in Latin America
The IADB has supported humanitarian demining in Latin America since 1993, with military personnel from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuela and Uruguay.
This support, always in conjunction with OAS programs, began with the Mission for Assistance in Demining in Central America, which operated from 1993 to 2010 in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, in addition to providing technical advice to Suriname. From 2002 to 2013, the South American Mission for Assistance in Demining operated in Ecuador and Peru.
In Colombia, the IADB has been operating since 2006 with the Inter-American Monitors Group and since 2015 with the Inter-American Technical Advisors Group. Thanks to the support of the IADB, the country currently has approximately 8,700 military personnel and civilians qualified to act against mines.
