The Kingdom of Thailand is a country at the center of the Southeast Asian Indochinese peninsula, composed of 76 provinces, with Bangkok as the capital city. Thailand is bordering Myanmar, Lao PDR, Cambodia and Malaysia. Thailand is 513,120 km2 and has a population of over 68 million people. Majority of Thai’s (over 90 per cent) are Buddhists, although other major religions are practiced. Thailand is a parliamentary (bi-cameral) democracy with a constitutional monarchy.
Internal conflicts in Thailand, as well as conflicts in Cambodia, Lao PDR and Myanmar near Thailand’s borders have resulted in contamination of landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW). More than 3,000 casualties have been recorded to date and large amounts of land are still out of bounds due to landmines and ERW; the main problem is a high level of landmine contamination in the Cambodia-Thailand border areas.
Norwegian People's Aid (NPA) started activities in Thailand in 2000, carrying out the national Landmine Impact Survey (LIS) of Thailand in collaboration with the Thailand Mine Action Centre (TMAC). NPA resumed support to TMAC in 2011, mainly providing technical advice on TMAC’s capacities in strategic planning, information management and introducing the concept of land release. Today our work is a combination of strategic advice to TMAC and conducting Non-Technical-Survey (NTS).
It is estimated that Thailand still has 360 km2 of landmine and ERW contamination in 10 provinces (7 of them are along the Thai-Cambodian border). NPA is working to assist Thailand in the North-eastern and Eastern provinces of the country (Thai-Laos and Thai-Cambodian borders).
- Mine Ban Treaty: state party; clearance deadline: 31 October 2023
- Convention on Cluster Munitions: not a state party
- NPA is the only demining NGO to be received by the Thai Prime Minister in person.
- NPA Thailand has the highest land release productivity output per capita in the SEA Region.
- NPA has released/cancelled areas more than 72 million m2 (size of approximately 11,250 football fields) for safe use and have destroyed over 6,000 dangerous objects since 2011.
