Mine event in Ukraine on Mon 17th July 2017

At about 10:10 on 17 July, positioned about 2km south-west of government-controlled Pyshchevyk (25km north-east of Mariupol), the SMM heard a loud explosion about 1km south. When the SMM moved north towards government-controlled Pavlopil (26km north-east of Mariupol), a civilian approached and told it that a tractor owned by an agricultural company had just struck a mine in a field in Hnutove. The SMM then visited the site on the northern edge of Hnutove, where it saw a tractor burning in the field 600m east of the road between Pavlopil and Hnutove as well as Ukrainian Armed Forces, State Emergency Services, police, fire brigade, emergency medical service and demining personnel nearby assisting two injured men. The SMM spoke with a State Emergency Services employee (in his thirties), one of the two injured, who it saw had sustained burns to his arms and face. He said that when the explosion had occurred (at the abovementioned time) he had been on the tractor with a driver to assess whether the land was cultivatable. The SMM also saw the injured driver (in his forties), an employee of the agricultural company, in a stretcher. Ukrainian officers of the Joint Centre for Control and Co-ordination (JCCC), who later arrived at the site, told the SMM that the explosion had been likely caused by an anti-tank mine. Later in the day, the SMM visited a hospital in Mariupol where medical staff told it that the injured driver had been admitted with shrapnel wounds to his right leg and burns and was undergoing an operation. At the Military Hospital in Mariupol medical staff told the SMM that the other injured man had been admitted with minor injuries and already released.