Almost three decades since the international adoption of the Mine Ban Treaty, civilians in almost 70 countries still live with the risk of landmines. About 6,000 people a year are killed and wounded globally by explosive remnants.
Clearance operations remain both a dangerous and painstaking task. It can take decades to rid a country of explosive remnants, but an Australian company – in partnership with the CSIRO – has developed new technology that it says has the potential to make clearance operations faster, smarter and safer.
Before the war, she was a teacher.
Now 34 year-old Maryna Kupchenko spends 10 hours a day scouring war-ravaged fields on the outskirts of Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine.
Clearing landmines, she says, is both a painstaking and perilous task.
“We must remain highly focused for long periods as even the smallest mistake can be fatal.”
Ukraine is now believed to be the most the most dangerous place on earth for unexploded weapons.
Australian volunteer Nick Parsons recently died in a demining incident in the east of the country.
It’s estimated millions of explosives have been strewn across battlefields in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in 2022.
Almost a quarter of the country is at risk of contamination, and it could take decades to rid the land of these invisible enemies.
Ensuring the safety of people now and into the future is the main reason Ms Kupchenko, a mother of two, became a de-miner.
“I decided that I must do something for my country. Sometimes (I’m) a little bit scared but I understand that my job, I must do it because it’s important.”
Landmines are a lethal legacy of war, where an end to the fighting does not mean an end to the casualties.
NATO estimates 110 million explosive devices lie in wait across the globe, with almost 70 countries affected – a result of historic and new conflicts.
The Vietnam war ended in 1975, but over the past 50 years, more than 40,000 people have been killed by explosive ordnance.
About 60,000 others survived but were maimed.
And in Syria, more than 600 people have died since the fall of the Assad regime in December.
Families have been returning home after years of war to find their villages laden with explosives.
Bruce Edwards, also based in Mykolaiv, is the former Australian Ambassador to Ukraine.
He now works for The HALO Trust, the world’s largest landmine clearance charity.
“Our CEO has described landmines as the ‘eternal vigilant sentry’ and no better is that demonstrated in the likes of Angola, one of our largest programs. In Cambodia, in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka… still we’re seeing deaths and inaccessibility due to these wars that for many people will be far, far from their memory.”
Landmine clearance operations are agonisingly slow.
Current devices typically detect metal and this can lead to hundreds of false positives, with former battlefields also littered with shrapnel, debris and other metal.
And many mines are now made from plastic – partly because it’s difficult to detect.
But what if you could instead identify explosives?
It’s a method that’s been tried and tested – largely without success – for decades.
But one Australian company may have cracked the code.
Nick Cutmore is the Chief Technology Officer at Sydney based start-up MRead.
“(There’s) nothing around in current technology that can look into the ground and tell you that there’s absolutely explosive there and count the number of explosive molecules present. That’s exactly what we do. People have chased developing this method for 20 years. It’s the holy grail of detection.”
MRead has developed a handheld device that looks like a metal detector, but instead uses technology known as magnetic resonance to detect explosive compounds.
“The technology we’re using is based on radio waves. So the closest analogy that you could think of in your daily life is the MRI scan in a hospital, where you basically have radio waves going into you as the object and the radio waves that come back help to form the image of that scan. We do something similar.”
Last year saw the first breakthrough in Angola – one of the most heavily mined countries in the world.
Trials in live minefields – the same visited by Princess Diana in the late 90s – were a success.
Carried out in collaboration with The HALO Trust, the trials demonstrated that the device’s ability to detect the explosive compound, RDX.
But the team were only halfway there.
TNT is the most common explosive used in landmines.
And in lab testing in Australia last month, there was another breakthrough – it too was identified.
HALO’s Bruce Edwards says it’s a significant development.
“I’m a big fan of saying there is no silver bullet in our work and people ask about gamechangers all the time, If we can have a detector that does detect both RDX and TNT within metal and plastic mines, then this has got to be close to a gamechanger.”
The team hopes the lab results will translate to reality.
A new prototype that can detect both TNT and RDX, explosives believed to be found in 90 per cent of mines globally, is now in development with active minefield trials expected to begin in 2026.
“As I said, no silver bullet, but definitely a breakthrough. It is exciting. Absolutely. And as an Australian, I’ve got to say, it is quite nice to have this Australian contribution being made across the world and I’d love to see them in Ukraine.”
The HALO Trust believes the technology has the potential to speed up clearance operations by 30 per cent – a significant statistic given how many lives are at stake.
About 6,000 (5,757) people a year are killed and wounded globally by mines and explosive remnants.