25 October 2018 at the United Nations General Assembly, Myanmar stated that its military, together with Ethnic Armed Organizations under the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA), had engaged in humanitarian demining in Kayin State. The representative of Myanmar went on to state that since 2011 more than 36,000 landmines and explosive remnants of war were cleared in the joint programme.
In the same statement, Myanmar said that it is in the process of finalizing its Myanmar National Mine Action Standard for the conduct of systematic mine clearance within the country. Myanmar is working with countries in the southeast Asian region, through ADMM-Plus Expert’s Working Group on Humanitarian Mine Action, under ASEAN Regional Mine Action Centre.
The Tatmadaw has created its own warning signs and fenced some known mined areas.
In January 2018, Union Joint Monitoring Committee (JMU-C) Secretary, Colonel Wunna Aung, stated that mine clearance could not begin prior to the building of mutual trust between the government and ethnic armed groups. In May 2017, Colonel Aung stated that the Tatmadaw would take the lead on landmine clearance and that international technological and material support would be accepted.
Military training in landmine safety caused 11 casualties in May 2019, details of which raise questions regarding Myanmar’s clearance capacities. See previous post: Are the Myanmar police being trained to clear mines in movies?.