Myanmar
Reducing landmine harm in Myanmar
Myanmar is facing a severe and growing landmine and explosive ordnance crisis. CSP works with communities, local organisations and conflict stakeholders to reduce harm now and create pathways toward future survey, marking and clearance.
Why Myanmar matters
Myanmar is facing one of the world’s most severe landmine and explosive ordnance crises. Civilians face daily risks while farming, travelling, fleeing violence, returning home, collecting food or water, and accessing humanitarian assistance.
In many areas, formal mine action remains limited by insecurity, politics, access constraints and lack of operational space. Yet communities are not waiting for perfect conditions. People continue to move, return, farm, rebuild and survive in areas where explosive hazards may be present.
In some places, communities and local actors are already improvising their own approaches to marking, avoiding or removing hazards because no formal support is available. CSP’s advocacy starts from this reality.
What CSP has helped achieve
CSP’s work in Myanmar is grounded in direct engagement, local partnership and field evidence.
In 2025, CSP worked with 15 local partner and community-based organisations to strengthen mine action advocacy and community engagement. Through these networks, CSP reached more than 10,950 people and gathered structured information from 356 villages across Southeast, Northwest and Rakhine areas.
This local evidence showed the scale of risk facing communities. Affected communities reported confirmed landmine contamination in 89 villages and suspected contamination in a further 191 villages. Overall, more than half of the villages reached reported either known landmine contamination or a landmine victim.
CSP also supported discreet engagement with Ethnic Resistance Organisations and local authorities, helping move conversations from general advocacy toward practical preparedness: mapping, recording, marking, non-technical survey and future clearance pathways.
This is what makes CSP different: we combine advocacy with access, trust and practical understanding of what is happening on the ground.
Our approach in Myanmar
CSP works through trusted relationships with local organisations, community leaders, humanitarian partners, donors and, where appropriate, parties to conflict.
Our engagement is humanitarian in purpose. We do not provide military, tactical or weapons-related support. We engage those who can reduce harm because civilian lives depend on it.
In Myanmar, CSP advocates for reduced use of landmines, better recording of hazardous areas, marking of dangerous places, community-led risk reduction, and pathways toward future survey and clearance.
Reduced use of landmines
Every landmine laid today can remain a threat to civilians for years or decades. CSP advocates for restraint by all parties and for greater recognition of the long-term humanitarian consequences of landmine use.
This advocacy is not abstract. It is about helping those with influence over landmine use understand the future cost to communities: blocked return, lost livelihoods, dangerous roads, unsafe farmland, child casualties and long-term clearance burdens.
Better recording of hazardous areas
Information about where landmines have been laid, found or suspected is often held by communities, local authorities or armed actors. If that information is not recorded, it can quickly be lost.
CSP advocates for the systematic recording of suspected and confirmed hazardous areas so future risk reduction, survey, marking and clearance can be better targeted.
Recording is one of the simplest and most important steps that can be taken before formal clearance becomes possible.
Marking dangerous places
Where clearance is not yet possible, marking can still save lives.
CSP supports practical discussion on how hazardous areas can be identified and marked in ways that are locally understood, realistic and linked to future mine action standards.
Marking should be based on credible local knowledge and should help communities make safer decisions without unnecessarily restricting access to land that may not be hazardous.
Community-led risk reduction
Affected communities often know where risks are, who is most exposed and what practical steps could reduce harm.
CSP works to ensure that community knowledge is heard, respected and used to inform advocacy, planning and future mine action. Communities and local organisations must not be treated only as beneficiaries. They are essential actors in understanding risk and shaping practical responses.
DEMARKAID and future clearance pathways
CSP has supported discussions on non-technical survey, mapping and marking, and contributed to the development of DEMARKAID – a phased approach to survey, mapping and marking that is aligned with international standards while adapted to Myanmar’s difficult operating environment.
DEMARKAID recognises that large-scale clearance may not yet be possible in many areas. But practical steps can still be taken now to reduce accidents, preserve information, support local decision-making and prepare for future mine action.
The goal is not to replace formal mine action. The goal is to reduce harm now, strengthen local preparedness and help ensure that future mine action is better informed by community knowledge.
Making the crisis visible
Landmine harm in Myanmar is often hidden by conflict, restricted access and under-reporting.
CSP works with photographers, local partners and affected communities to document the human impact of landmines and explosive ordnance. This field storytelling helps donors, policy-makers and the wider public understand what communities are facing and why practical action cannot wait.
Stories, images and survivor testimony are gathered and shared with care, dignity and consent. The aim is not to sensationalise suffering, but to make civilian harm visible and support action to reduce it.
Looking ahead
CSP will continue working with local organisations, community leaders, humanitarian partners, donors and, where appropriate, parties to conflict to reduce landmine harm in Myanmar. Our priorities are to strengthen local evidence, support practical marking and mapping, encourage restraint in landmine use, expand trusted dialogue and help create pathways toward future survey and clearance.
The challenge is immense. But there are practical steps that can save lives now. Myanmar cannot wait for perfect conditions.