Ukraine Mine Action Conference to be held in Switzerland

Switzerland will host a Ukraine Mine Action Conference (UMAC2024) in October.

The press service of the Swiss Federal Council announced this.

The conference will bring together representatives of governments, international organizations, humanitarian demining, and civil society.

The conference, which will be held in Lausanne on October 17-18 and is organized jointly with Ukraine, aims to highlight the critical importance of humanitarian demining for the country’s socio-economic recovery.

The conference on mine action in Ukraine will also bring together high-level officials, representatives of international organizations, the private sector, and the scientific community.

It is noted that the event will focus on global aspects of humanitarian demining, in particular three main components: people, partners, and progress.

“The aim is to put the civilian population at the center of the debate, to highlight the benefits of partnerships and to show how innovation makes mine action safer and more effective,” the statement reads.

The Swiss government pointed out that since the beginning of the Russian full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine has become one of the most mined countries in the world.

It is estimated that almost a quarter of Ukraine’s territory is contaminated with mines and other unexploded ordnance.

Viola Amherd, President of the Confederation, will represent Switzerland, who will open the conference, and Ignazio Cassis, head of the FDFA.

As a reminder, the HALO Trust Ukraine has trained 600 humanitarian demining instructors. The specialists were trained as part of the foundation’s “Training of Trainers” project, which launched a year and a half ago.

The course graduates include rescuers, police officers, volunteers, educators, farmers, and government officials. They are already teaching people in their communities to recognize and respond to explosive threats.