After nearly thirty years of civil war, Sri Lanka was, in 2002, one of the countries most affected in the world by landmines and unexploded ordnance. The ceasefire signed that year revealed the scale of the problem: millions of square metres of agricultural land, mainly in the north and east, remained dangerous and uninhabitable. In response, the first humanitarian demining operations were launched to secure rural areas and enable the gradual return of displaced communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n