INTERVIEW-Mozambique discovers more land-mined areas
12 Jan 2009 14:26:25 GMT Source: Reuters
By Charles Mangwiro MAPUTO, Jan 12 (Reuters) - It will take Mozambique until 2014 to clear itself of land mines, a senior official said on Monday after vast areas of the southern African country were revealed as being contaminated with mines. The director of the National Demining Institute, IND, Fernando Mulima told Reuters that Mozambique had been given an extension to its demining deadline as laid out by the Ottawa treaty outlawing anti-personal landmines. "We have until 2014 to clear these underground lethal weapons, it's no longer possible this year as per our original hopes. We have just discovered new heavily-mined areas covering 12 million square metres across Mozambique," he said. Millions of mines were planted in Mozambique during a 16-year civil war that ended in 1992 and left more than 2 million people dead. Mulima said Mozambique currently had the capacity to demine only two million square metres a year. "We made the extension request in December, and it was accepted by the co-signatories of the treaty," he said, adding demining had been completed in the four of the southern African country's eleven provinces. "Some of these minefields are very old since they were sown by the Portuguese colonial army prior to the country's independence in 1975, and our demining work is also hindered by the lack of any maps of minefields." Mozambique covers more than 800,000 square kilometres, roughly the size of Turkey. (Reporting by Gordon Bell; Editing by Matthew Jones)
A member of an NGO de-mining team shows a leaflet to school children during a lesson about landmines in Radhwaniya district western Baghdad December 7, 2008. REUTERS/Saad Shalash (IRAQ) ...
