GLOBAL LANDMINES CRISIS

Landmine Crisis in the Golden Land. Burma’s Hidden Killers

Landmines in the Path of the Believer

“THE MILITARY CAN’T TELL US WHERE THEY LEFT THEIR LANDMINES BUT THESE POEPLE CAN”

It is estimated that there are between 45 and 50 million landmines in the ground in at least 70 countries. Landmines reportedly maim or kill 10,000 civilians every year. Those victims that survive endure a lifetime of physical, psychological, and economic hardship.
The global landmine crisis is the most pervasive, solvable, problem facing the world today. Through our activities you can help clear the land in some of the most heavily mine affected countries in the world and ease the physical, psychological and economic hardship faced by landmine survivors and their communities.

In recent years, the international community has made significant progress in addressing the global landmine crisis. An international treaty to ban landmines, known as the Ottawa or Mine Ban Treaty, entered into force on March 1, 1999, faster than any international treaty in history. International and nongovernmental organizations are working with mine-affected countries to establish effective mine awareness campaigns and victim assistance programs. The United Nations is coordinating a global effort to survey the state of landmine contamination in mine-affected countries, and private and public groups are undertaking mine clearance efforts in more countries than ever before. Yet, with all these accomplishments to its credit, the international community continues to face many overwhelming challenges.

What is Mine Action :

Mine action entails more than removing landmines from the ground. It includes actions ranging from teaching people how to protect themselves from danger in a mine-affected environment to advocating for a mine-free world.

Mine action is not just about landmines. In many countries, unexploded ordnance, or UXO, poses an even greater threat to people’s safety. UXO comprises bombs, mortars, grenades, missiles or other devices that fail to detonate on impact but remain volatile and can kill if touched or moved. Some of the main sources of UXO are cluster bombs. Today, mine-action programmes typically address problems of landmines, UXO and “explosive remnants of war,” which includes UXO and “abandoned ordnance,” or weapons left behind by armed forces when they leave an area.

There are five aspects or “pillars” of mine action:

• Removing and destroying landmines and explosive remnants of war and marking or fencing off areas contaminated with them.
• Mine-risk education to help people understand the risks they face, identify mines and explosive remnants of war and learn how to stay out of harm’s way.
• Medical assistance and rehabilitation services to victims, including job skills training and employment opportunities.
• Advocating for a world free from the threat of landmines and encouraging countries to participate in international treaties and conventions designed to end the production, trade, shipment or use of mines and to uphold the rights of persons with disabilities.
• Helping countries destroy their stockpiles of mines as required by international agreements, such as the 1999 anti-personnel mine-ban treaty.

Landmines and explosive remnants of war affect at least 78 countries and injure or kill between 15,000 and 20,000 people annually.

Clearance operations make use of three main methods:

• Mechanical clearance relies on flails, rollers, vegetation cutters and excavators, often attached to armoured bulldozers, to destroy the mines in the ground. These machines can only be used in certain terrains, and are expensive to operate. In most situations they are also not 100% reliable, and the work needs to be checked by other techniques.
• Advances in technology have been made in recent years, both in mine detection systems and in mechanical means for destroying mines in place. However, in many situations manual clearance remains the preferred method, for reasons both of cost and reliability.
• Manual clearance relies on trained deminers using metal detectors and long thin prodders to locate the mines, which are then destroyed by controlled explosion;
• Mine detection dogs, which detect the presence of explosives in the ground by smell. Dogs are used in combination with manual deminers;

Listen to Charles F Stanley

Life is full of hidden dangers that lead to defeat. Being aware of these landmines is the first step to avoiding them. Dr. Charles Stanley identifies seven destructive temptations and gives Christians the hope and skills they need to live an abundant and obedient life.

The global landmines crisis

Listen to Dr. William Boyce, Queens University, Kingston, Canada

THE FOR ACTION IN NICARAGUA :

Landmines are indiscriminate weapons, wounding and killing not only soldiers but women and children as well. Although hostilities may cease, landmines continue to maim and kill 500 victims a week, the equivalent of 26,000 additional disabled persons each year. There are at least 250,000 landmine-disabled people in the world, and the number continues to grow. The landmine issue will not end with the signing of a comprehensive treaty on anti-personnel landmines. There are complex problems in detecting and removing landmines, in preventing further injuries and in assisting disabled persons and disrupted communities to reconstruct their social, economic, political and civil infrastructures. Since landmines and other unexploded ordnance have serious inter-sectoral consequences for the reconstruction of war-torn societies, especially in developing countries, they are best addressed from a development perspective, which ensures due regard for the principles of equity, capacity building and sustainability. These principles suggest that the landmine-injured and war-wounded should not be segregated nor receive services which are inaccessible to the general population of disabled persons. This could be socially, and possibly politically, divisive.

To read more about the

REPORT FROM CENTRAL AMERICAN  LANDMINES SURVIVORS :

“THE MILITARY CAN’T TELL US WHERE THEY LEFT THEIR LANDMINES

BUT THESE POEPLE CAN”

THE FOR ACTION IN CAMBODIA :

Cambodia K5: Living with Landmines

Aki Ra has cleared over 50,000 mines and fostered 70 amputee children.

The story of Aki Ra, a Khmer Rouge child soldier who lay thousands of landmines along the K5 Belt. He has now dedicated his life to clearing the belt of mines and helping amputee children.