By Meg Foley Yoder
Jonathan Moss, a former U.S. Navy explosive ordnance disposal officer, offered a sobering account of life and work in one of the world’s most dangerous and least reported humanitarian crises at a recent lunchtime session hosted by the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights.
Speaking to a full room, Moss described the widespread and growing threat of landmines in Burma, also known as Myanmar, where a military coup in 2021 has intensified a long-running civil war and left civilians increasingly vulnerable.
Moss, a 2024 graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School, now works in Southeast Asia with the humanitarian organization Free Burma Rangers. His work focuses on training local communities to detect and clear landmines in active conflict zones. The task is as urgent as it is perilous.
“Just in 2023 alone, there were over a thousand landmine casualties,” Moss said. “That’s doubled over previous years. So it’s intensifying.”
The numbers, he emphasized, tell only part of the story. More than 20 percent of victims are children, and many incidents go unreported due to the difficulty of accessing remote and contested regions. “Burma is the number one most deadly country in the world for civilian casualties,” he said, adding that the true toll is likely far higher than official figures suggest.
Rather than targeting soldiers, mines are often placed deliberately in civilian areas.
The widespread use of landmines in Burma differs from traditional battlefield deployment. Rather than targeting soldiers, mines are often placed deliberately in civilian areas. Moss described encountering explosives “inside homes, in churches, in waterways where people go to collect water, even around hospitals.” These devices are designed not only to injure but to displace, making entire villages uninhabitable long after fighting has moved elsewhere.
For civilians, the consequences are stark. Many families live in internally displaced persons camps, sometimes for years, moving repeatedly to avoid violence. Yet returning home can be just as dangerous. “A lot of times they’re going back to collect basic things for survival,” Moss said. “When they go back, unbeknownst to them, there are landmines inside their homes.”
This dynamic has created an impossible choice: remain in camps where people may go hungry or return home and risk death.
Despite the scale of the crisis, there are no international demining organizations conducting clearance operations inside Burma. The UN Mine Action Strategy for Myanmar (2025-26) restricts international organizations to risk education only. International groups also typically require permission from the host government, and in this case, the military junta responsible for much of the violence has not granted access.
In the absence of outside support, local communities have taken on the dangerous work themselves. Moss and his colleagues train villagers and local responders to identify and clear explosives using whatever tools are available. Sometimes that means professional equipment, but more often it involves improvised solutions.
Moss said the most common landmines, small plastic devices known as M14s, are especially difficult to detect. With only minimal metal components, they often evade standard equipment, making them particularly dangerous in environments where advanced tools are scarce.
Instead, many rely on basic or even makeshift tools. Some use inexpensive metal detectors designed for hobbyists, which can produce unreliable readings. Others resort to probing the ground with sticks or knives. The risks are immense. Moss recalled seeing individuals who had learned to remove mines by hand out of necessity, a practice that has led to countless injuries.
This dynamic has created an impossible choice: remain in camps where people may go hungry or return home and risk death.
The work is made even more difficult by the environment. Dense jungle terrain, heavy rains, and metal-rich soil complicate detection efforts. At the same time, teams must contend with the constant threat of attack. “We are under the threat of attack from a jet all the time, 24/7,” Moss said. “We are literally under fire because we’re trying to clear these mines.”
Even transporting equipment into conflict zones presents challenges. Supplies often must be carried on foot for days, navigating around military positions. Fuel is scarce and expensive, and there is little infrastructure to support sustained operations.
Despite these constraints, Moss described efforts to introduce innovative, low-cost solutions. His team uses consumer-grade drones to map contaminated areas, then applies machine learning to identify potential mine locations. The goal, he said, is not to use technology for its own sake but to improve safety. “We’re only trying to use it if it’s going to save lives,” he explained.
Beyond clearance, the work includes education and survivor support. Teams provide training in explosive risk awareness, teaching children and adults how to recognize and avoid dangerous objects. They also assist victims with medical care and prosthetics, though resources are limited. The Free Burma Rangers rely heavily on donations to sustain these efforts and remain in constant need of additional support.
Moss shared stories of individuals who had adapted in remarkable ways after devastating injuries. One farmer fashioned a prosthetic leg from wood after stepping on a mine. Another man, who lost both arms while attempting to remove an explosive from a friend’s home, now relies entirely on others for daily care.
“These are the kinds of injuries that we see every day,” Moss said. “And this is all very common.”
The persistence of such stories underscores the broader reality Moss described: in Burma, the dangers of war do not end when the fighting stops. Landmines remain, hidden and indiscriminate, shaping daily life long after villages fall silent.
With no international demining presence, the burden of clearing them falls largely on local communities, often with little more than improvised tools and limited training. For many, the work is not a choice but a necessity, a way to make it possible, however slowly, to return home.Top of FormBottom of Form
