Both parties to the conflict widely used anti-personnel and anti-tank mines as a defense tactic to protect bases, roads, checkpoints and other strategic areas. Authoritative international organizations believed that for the most part both sides used mines within the framework of military strategy, and that mines were not used in a manner intended to harm civilians.55 However, the failure adequately to mark off mined areas, sloppy demining, and the inherently indiscriminate nature of land mines contributed to as many as 500 civilian mine casualties during the first year of the war, according to international relief organizations.56 After the conclusion of the Khasavyurt agreement, the United Commission facilitated an agreement between the two parties on demining. The process to date, however, has been disorganized, according to a member of the international community in Grozny.
A major impediment to the demining processes is that neither Russian nor Chechen forces possess maps of minefields, which perhaps explains why demining occurs in response to individual complaints rather than as a systematic effort. Major Gen. Nikolai Shvetsov, then co-commander of the joint kommandatura, explained to Human RightsWatch/Helsinki that the lack of maps was due both to the hasty withdrawal of Russian forces from their bases throughout Chechnya, during which "everything was lost in the hurry," and to the fact that for many areas Russian forces never had such maps.57 Demining teams duly respond to reports of mines: during the five-day period prior to Human Rights Watch/Helsinki's mission, for example, four locations had been demined on the basis of individual complaints. Yet this rather haphazard approach to demining poses obvious dangers for civilians, especially in rural areas where entire fields may be mined. The threat of civilian deaths and injuries will increase with time, as people forget where minefields were once located.
It is difficult to ascertain the number of mine victims, for two reasons. First, not all hospitals differentiate between grenades, previously unexploded shells, and mines as cause of injury. Second, patients themselves often do not know what explosive device caused their injury.58 Civilian mine casualties are not yet at a crisis level, but their occurrence, according to some experts, is expected to account for a greater share of hospital patients as time goes on. This is all the more tragic because they are preventable. Human Rights Watch/Helsinki learned, for example, of three children who had become mine casualties after the end of hostilities in August. A boy who had been playing with a mine was brought to the ICRC hospital in Novye Atagi at the end of August. He lost his right arm, leg, and groin, and a lot of blood. While hospital staff did everything they could to stabilize him, he died in surgery. Two young boys had also been transferred to the Novye Atagi hospital from the pediatric hospital for mine shrapnel injuries, although it was unclear exactly when the injuries occurred.59
Sheta Maksutov, a shepherd, lost his right leg to a mine explosion on October 6, 1996, as he was herding sheep in the Andreev valley near Grozny. He reported to Human Rights Watch/Helsinki that he had been through that spot previously but had never seen anything suspicious:
But then on October 6, sometime in the afternoon . . . There was one sheep I wanted to drive off, she ran off through a fence. I grabbed it with both hands [to climb over] and stepped on a mine with my right foot. I didn't see the mine, it was underground, hidden under some weeds. There was a clicking sound and I knew I stepped on a mine. I stood there for twenty minutes wondering what to do. I knew that as soon as I step off, the mine would explode. Then I put my jacket on, huddled myself up in to a ball and jumped aside, toward the factory. But the mine blew up in a second. I saved my left leg, but I couldn't save my right leg, I lost it below the knee. I wrapped up my leg with a scarf and called for help.
It was an anti-personnel mine, not an anti-tank mine. There had been a checkpoint 400 meters away. And there was a rubber factory nearby. We had told the soldiers to take the mines away, but they didn't clear the whole area. It wasn't just a field, there is also a factory and a brick fence. There was a path, but there wasn't a road and people [wouldn't drive] cars through the field. The fence was broken. . . . Soldiers were walking around there all winter, they were clearing the roads and looking for mines, before they were withdrawn. But when they left their checkpoint [for good], we asked them to take the mines away. They said that it wasn't their job and that there weren't any mines there.60
Saidari Bekeshev is a farmer whose tractor blew up on an anti-tank mine on September 30 near the Shami-Yurt forest, causing him to lose his leg and killing one of his co-workers. He reported to Human Rights Watch/Helsinki:
We drove out on the tractor. We got there all right, but on the way back we hit [a mine]. There were three of us; one died here, in the hospital. The other received burns, I don't know where he is now. I have burns and had my leg amputated. After the explosion I was on fire. I didn't lose consciousness. I jumped into some water to put out [the fire].
There was some kind of military base in the woods. The checkpoint, it was three kilometers from where we hit the mine. There used to be soldiers there, they would go around on APCs.61
Tunko Malayev, a farmer from the Vedeno district, was riding on his tractor when it hit a mine in mid-August 1996, damaging his kidneys, spine and spleen.62 Mr. Malayev had great difficulty recalling the events, but told Human Rights Watch/Helsinki, "I was on my tractor, it's on treads, not tires. I don't remember when it was. They said I flew right out of the cab [of the tractor] and landed on the ground. They said I screamed something. They operated on me . . . twice in Shali. Sometime around September 12 they brought me home. That part of my body, it's not normal. I can't even hold a cup [in my hand]."
Mr. Malayev related that while in the Shali hospital, he saw new mine victims brought in just about every day. "There were two of them in my ward, just like me. They're out there herding cows and something exploded. Shrapnel everywhere."
Shaman Gaitiyev witnessed the explosion of Mr. Malayev's tractor, and noted to Human Rights Watch/Helsinki that it took place around 11:00 a.m. in mid-August.
He was riding behind me. I went around the mine. He was behind me. He went to get gas and came through an hour later. I'm sitting and waiting. . . about 150-200 meters away. I hear the sound of his tractor. I turned around and [shouted] for him to follow my tracks. I knew there could be mines there... I heard the explosion, then understood that it was a mine. I ran up... We put him right in a car and took him to the hospital. He was unconscious.
The explosion left a hole about a half a meter wide. It was deep. There wasn't any shrapnel. It was an anti-tank mine. Their base was further up the heights. There wasn't any base or anything there. Just the woods.63
In mid-November, the deaths of eight people due to mine explosions in Bamut (which had been a major Chechen stronghold during much of the war) and Orekhovo raised public awareness about the mortal dangers left by mines.64
55 Source requested anonymity.
57 Human Rights Watch/Helsinki interview with Major General Alexander Nikolaevich Shevtsov, co-commander of the Joint Kommandatura, Grozny, October 21, 1996. Regarding maps, Major General Shevtsov stated, "I think they do not exist."
58 Human Rights Watch/Helsinki interview with Fernanda Calado, delegate with the ICRC, Novye Atagi, October 20, 1996. Ms. Calado was one of the six ICRC delegates murdered on December 17, 1996. The ICRC withdrew completely from the hospital and from Chechnya after the attack.
60 Human Rights Watch/Helsinki interview with Sheta Maksutov, Novye Atagi, October 20.
61 Human Rights Watch/Helsinki interview with Saidari Bekeshev, Novye Atagi, October 20, 1996
62 Human Rights Watch/Helsinki interview with Tunko Malayev, Oktyabrskii village, Vedeno district, October 15, 1996.
63 Human Rights Watch/Helsinki interview with Shaman Gaitiyev, Oktyabrskii village Vedeno district, October 15, 1996
64 See RIA-Novosti, "Eight People Blown up by Mines in the Achkoi-Martan District," November 18, 1996.