The HALO Trust

Two years of work concludes 💙 This week, after two years of extremely challenging work in an urban environment, HALO #Kosovo was delighted to complete the clearance of Arllat village. Our teams have cleared 62,606 m² of land, including cluster bombs found in residents' backyards that were dropped during the 1999 Kosovo War. The dedication of HALO’s teams in completing this challenging clearance means that 3,000 members of the local community can live safely, with renewed hope for the future. Thank you to the U.S. Department of State and Federal Department of Foreign Affairs FDFA for generously supporting this vital work.

A call from a farmer who found unidentified items in his field turned into a complex operation for the HALO #Cambodia team. The items were rusty and difficult to identify as they were buried in the 1970s, but working in cooperation with Takeo's Police Department, our teams safely disposed of 59 grenades and seven anti-personnel mines. The site where the items were found is close to a very important pagoda, and the resident monks observed our work from afar before offering blessings to the team members. 🙏 Thank you to the U.S. Department of State for their ongoing support of our life-saving work in Cambodia.

Huge aircraft bomb destroyed in #Afghanistan! HALO Afghanistan recently disposed of a 500kg aircraft bomb, dropped by Soviet forces during the invasion of Afghanistan (1979-1989), which posed a threat to the local community in Sancharak district. Having been discovered near the local bazaar, HALO was called upon to support the safe disposal of the bomb. To do this, our Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team built a protective area using 10,200 sandbags to defuse the bomb, and then moved it to be safely destroyed outside of the town. The HALO Afghanistan EOD team often faces such challenges, due to aircraft bombs being heavily used during different phases of conflict. With over 35 years of experience in Afghanistan, HALO continues to support local communities with our life-saving work.

HALO #ElSalvador recently celebrated the launch of an armourer’s training course, conducted in partnership with the National Civilian Police of El Salvador. Working within the National Police, the job of an armourer is to manage the storage, safe use and maintenance of small arms and light weapons, as poor stockpile management poses threats to national security and the safety of local communities. Those taking the training course will learn to recognise the condition of weapons, how to destroy obsolete weapons, and how to safely separate and store different items. This improves security, reduces the risk of accidents and unsafe storage, and helps avoid weapons being diverted to criminal groups. Thank you to the U.S. Department of State, whose generous support makes this work possible.

Making life safer in #Ukraine! HALO Ukraine and the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic have agreed to extend their cooperation in Ukraine. Thanks to Czech support, since last summer HALO teams have been surveying and clearing the land of explosives in regions across the country. The extension to this agreement will build on HALO’s achievements over the last 12 months, with the following aims: 🔐 Enhanced security and stability ⚠️ Reduced risk of death and injury 💼 Access to socio-economic opportunities 📄 Education for locals on explosive risks We are very grateful to the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic for their continued support of this life-saving work.

Scaling the heights for HALO! 💙 A huge thank you to Ben Hillyard, who this week reached the summit of #MontBlanc in support of our work. Congratulations to Ben for this incredible achievement! If you would like to support Ben's efforts, you can donate to his fundraiser here: https://bit.ly/4cLPchh

A very special guest in #Ukraine! This week, #HALOUkraine was delighted to welcome the First Lady, Olena Zelenska, to one of their sessions at a summer camp, run by Voices of Children, for children whose lives have been affected by war. In partnership with the Olena Zelenska Foundation | Фундація Олени Зеленської, HALO has been running sessions for 1,700 young Ukrainians this summer, as they learn life-saving skills, including how to identify potentially dangerous objects. With almost 30% of the country contaminated with explosives and dangerous objects, teaching children how to stay safe is essential, and as well as these HALO sessions, the children also receive psychological support at the camp. A big thank you to our partners and to the First Lady for visiting HALO! 💙

HALO's Chris Teasdale spoke to Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) about our work mapping unexploded #WWII bombs in the #SolomonIslands, following the recent discovery of over 200 bombs underneath a school. 🎧 Listen now: https://ab.co/3Z3GMyG

Mine Action Review’s 'Clearing Cluster Munition Remnants 2024' report is now online at www.mineactionreview.org, together with our ‘Guide to the #LausanneActionPlan and Provisional Results of 2024 Monitoring for Survey and Clearance’. Please check out the reports on Mine Action Review's website and share with #MineAction colleagues, ahead of the Twelfth Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions from 10-13 September at the UN in Geneva. Great to see a new annual record set in 2023 for global clearance of cluster munition-contaminated area – 185.03 square kilometres. The increase in clearance output of approximately 8% compared to 2022 is largely the result of increases in clearance in south-east Asia, with Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR)—a State Party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM)—and States not party Cambodia and Vietnam all increasing their clearance output in 2023. A total of 96,553 unexploded submunitions were destroyed worldwide during clearance, survey, and spot tasks in 2023, a drop on the 102,427 destroyed the previous year. Many thanks to my colleagues in the Mine Action Review team, our Advisory Board Members, The HALO Trust, MAG (Mines Advisory Group), and Norwegian People's Aid / Norsk Folkehjelp, and all the national mine action authorities, clearance operators, United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS), UNDP, Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD), OSCE, and other partners who provided data to this year's research. Collaboration is central to our work. Thank you also to the governments of Canada, Switzerland, and Norway for funding the Mine Action Review project and making the project possible.

Giving opportunities to those injured by explosives in #Ukraine. 💙 This week, HALO Ukraine was delighted to welcome participants of a pilot training scheme for people with disabilities caused by explosives, including war veterans. Launched by UNDP, the Government of the Netherlands, and the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine, the training focuses on the use of UAVs (drones) to collect and analyse imagery as part of the process of clearing the land of mines and explosives. This pioneering project will foster employment opportunities and will play a key role in contributing to social inclusion, empowerment, and rebuilding lives that have been affected by conflict. We are grateful for the support of all our partners on this pilot scheme, and we are delighted to be part of a project that offers opportunities in humanitarian work to those who’ve been injured - a key part of the process of rebuilding. 📷: Oleksandr Ratushniak / UNDP Ukraine