Iraq: Mine Action and HLP Guidance Note, March 2020
Overview
The Republic of Iraq is believed to be the world’s most heavily contaminated country, with extensive
and complex explosive hazard (EH) contamination stemming from a multitude of conflicts over the
past decades, including the most recent EH contamination resulting from the conflict with the so called
Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL). The type and the extent of the EH contamination in Iraq is
unprecedentedly vast and multi-layered, including conventional explosive remnants of war (ERWs)
such as anti-personnel mines (AP), anti-vehicle mines (AV), cluster munitions and other conventional
ordnance, as well as most recently witnessed improvised explosive devices (IEDs). That, combined
with the evolving nature of contamination from traditional minefields, battle area and cluster
contamination to more urban and residential EH contamination, makes Iraq a pioneer for the sector
of mine action and housing, land and property rights(HLP) with various the complexities of the nascent
humanitarian operational environment.
An unstable security situation; fear and trauma; lack of social cohesion; issues related to
documentation; lack of livelihoods; destroyed or damaged housing, as well as perceived fear of EH
contamination all contribute to protracted displacements of internally displaced persons (IDPs), as
well as secondary and new displacement of populations in need. Negative coping mechanisms that
the persons in humanitarian need resort to, such as secondary occupation of properties, engaging in
removal of EH by civilians, or paying third party groups to do so, among others, contribute to an
unsafe, unsustainable, involuntary and undignified return process of IDPs to their areas of origin.
According to the 2019 Iraq Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO), the issue of protracted displacement
will extend well into 2019 with predictions of it rolling over to 2020 and the coming years.
The most recent conflict in Iraq has pushed millions of people to flee their homes, causing 6.7 million
to be in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, still in 2019. There are approximately 2 million IDPs
living in camps and informal non-camp settlements, who are unable to return to their homes.
