UNITED NATIONS: Landmines still lay hidden in nearly 70 countries that continue to kill or maim innocent people, despite the destruction of millions of booby traps globally by UN personnel over the past two decades, the world body said Monday.
Marked annually on April 4, the International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action, draws awareness to why landmines are one of the most insidious and indiscriminate weapons of war.
The latest estimates show that in 2021, more than 5,500 people were killed or maimed by landmines, most of them were civilians, half of whom were children. More than two decades after the adoption of the Mine Ban Treaty, about sixty million people in nearly 70 countries and territories still live with the risk of landmines on a daily basis.
The UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS), created by the treaty, launched the campaign “Mine Action Cannot Wait” to mark the International Day, as countries like Angola, Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Vietnam, continue to suffer from decades of landmine contamination.
Landmines can lie dormant for years or even decades until they are triggered, it was pointed out.
“Even after the fighting stops, conflicts often leave behind a terrifying legacy: landmines and explosive ordnance that litter communities,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in his message for the International Day.
“Peace brings no assurance of safety when roads and fields are mined, when unexploded ordnance threatens the return of displaced populations, and when children find and play with shiny objects that explode.” –Agencies
