For decades, Algeria has grappled with the deadly remnants of a mine-laden conflict initiated by France in the mid-20th century. Despite repeated demands, the French government has neither taken full responsibility nor provided reliable maps of the minefields.
As a result, demining efforts have dragged on, leaving communities at constant risk. Similar to the situation in Azerbaijan, a nation bridging Europe and Asia and bordered by Iran, Russia, and Turkey, the threat of landmines does not vanish with the silencing of guns. These buried dangers persist long after peace is declared, continuing to maim and kill.
On April 4, the UN Human Rights Council unanimously and without a vote supported a resolution calling on countries to comply with the 1997 treaty banning the use of mines, to protect and ensure human rights.
The initiative was spearheaded by Algeria, which is most familiar with the effects of the mine threat. However, 1956 through 1962, during the Algerian War of Independence, France laid 11 million mines along Algeria’s eastern and western borders.
“The anti-personnel mines left behind by French colonialism represent one of Algeria’s greatest humanitarian disasters. Buried under Algerian soil, these mines continued to kill and maim the local population even after the national liberation war,' Cameroon’s Africa plus news television channel said on April 6.
On the same day when this statement was made, April 6, in Azerbaijan (a co-sponsor country of the UN resolution) as a result of two incidents of mine blast 4 people were injured at once.
In the first case, an employee of the demining center, who had his leg amputated as a result. In the second, a father with two young children, aged 11 and 13, suffered multiple shrapnel wounds to their legs and arms.
Azerbaijan is the second most mine-contaminated country in Europe after Ukraine. For almost 30 years, parts of Azerbaijan have been occupied by Armenia, France’s closest ally. With the support of its patrons, Armenia laid more than 1.5 million mines there, which have claimed the lives of civilians to this day.
Algeria and Azerbaijan, a common echo of explosions
To prevent the infiltration of Algerian revolutionaries and weapons from Tunisia and Morocco during the Algerian War of Independence, minefields were established by the French colonial power along the 1,710 kilometers of Algeria’s eastern and western borders. As a result, 3 million Algerians living in the border areas were displaced.
Since then, 7,300 civilians have fallen victim to mines in Algeria, 4,830 of them during the war and 2,470 since independence.
Despite the fact that Algeria has cleared more than 62,000 hectares of land, cleared nearly 9 million mines and declared itself an 'anti-personnel mine-free country' in 2017, there are still cases of villagers, farmers and children being blown up.
It is alleged that France did not hand over maps with the location of minefields to Algeria until 2007. And when it did hand over – the maps were not complete.
“There are more than 2,200,000 of them [mines], and France has so far handed us only part of the maps showing where they are planted. As for humanity, Mr. President Macron, while you are talking about human values, there are citizens who have had limbs amputated and those who have died because of these mines. Not a day goes by that we don’t hear about a mine explosion that injured a person, and we are already living in 2025,” said former Algerian politician Ahmed Khalifa on April 6.
The situation in Algeria is strikingly similar to the situation in Azerbaijan, which is thousands of kilometers away. From 1991 to 2020, part of Azerbaijani territories was under Armenian occupation. During this time, more than 3,400 people suffered from mines laid by Armenians.
In 2020, Azerbaijan managed to regain control over the occupied territories, but this did not solve the problem of mine contamination. Since 2020, more than 390 people have fallen victim to mines.
Hasanli Aliyev, who had his leg amputated as a result of the blast, recalled on Euro news, “I was 23 years old when I stepped on a mine. Like any young man, I had big dreams and goals. The mine explosion had a huge impact on my life.”
Armenia, like its patron France in the Algerian situation, initially claimed it did not have maps of the minefields, and when it did hand them over, they were only 25% accurate. A spokesman for the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said on April 4 that 'more than 55% of recent mine accidents occurred in territories not covered by these maps.'
Since 2020, Armenia and Azerbaijan have been negotiating a final peace treaty. But the normalization of relations between these countries does not correspond to the interests of France, which seeks to maintain a hotbed of tension in the South Caucasus in order to have leverage over the countries of the region.
Therefore, while Baku and Yerevan are holding peace talks, France is supplying offensive weapons to Armenia, which may provoke a new conflict in the region.
In June 2024, during the visit of the Armenian Defense Minister to France, the parties signed a contract for the supply of French CAY CAESAR howitzers to Armenia.
An agreement on military-technical cooperation was also signed between the Armenian Defense Ministry and KNDS military-industrial company, which produces various types of military equipment, including tanks and self-propelled artillery systems.
France has also initiated the dispatch of a European observation mission to Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan, which is essentially engaged in intelligence activities there.
France is alleged to have pursued a similar policy in Africa, where it has repeatedly been accused of using the pretext of a terrorist threat to maintain its presence there.
For decades, France has maintained influence in its former colonies by supporting and protecting loyalist regimes from military coups, using the pretext of fighting terrorism in the Sahel region to deploy its own troops, and imposing the CFA franc.
The main goal of Paris in this case was to maintain access to natural resources of African countries and to establish control over their financial system. Experts estimate that France receives 500 billion dollars annually from Africa.
Compensation for mine terror
Due to the growing mine threat in the world, especially after the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war, there are increasing calls for a ban on the use of anti-personnel mines, as well as compensation for their victims.
The Mine Justice Campaign was launched at the 58th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Its aim is to get the UN Human Rights Council to recognize the right of mine victims to compensation, both from the companies that produce mines and the governments that lay them.
Algeria has for several years been calling on France to compensate victims of mines laid by French colonial rule in Algeria.
'The crime of the French colonizer cannot go unpunished,' Bouzid Lazhari, head of the Algerian National Council for Human Rights, said in 2021, urging Algerians to continue their fight for compensation. France has completely ignored these calls.
At the same time, Azerbaijan carries out demining at its own expense and calls on the international community to hold Armenia responsible for the mine terror against Azerbaijan.
However, given the fact that Armenia has not yet handed over maps with the exact location of minefields in the previously occupied territories, it is apparently too early to talk about paying compensation to the victims.
Editor’s note: Views expressed in this article are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of IGIHE.
The writer is a journalist and political analyst specializing in post-colonial justice, conflict, and human rights.
Isaac Edotom Dzokpo
