Reuters AlertNet Lite - FEATURE-Landmines are hidden horror in rural Colombia

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FEATURE-Landmines are hidden horror in rural Colombia

15 Nov 2006 18:04:00 GMT
Source: Reuters

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Soldiers, who are victims of landmines, exercise in a rehabilitation center at a military base in Medellin, Antioquia province, September 26, 2006. Home-made mines crafted from tin cans and containers, hidden in trees, rivers and buried on pathways, killed or wounded 1,100 people last year, according to the Landmine Monitor. It was the highest figure of any country in the world. More than half of Colombia's victims are soldiers, but in rural hamlets like those in Antioquia department in northwestern Colombia children have been crippled working in fields, farmers maimed bringing in cattle and families wounded as they flee recent combat or threats. Picture taken on September 26, 2006. To match feature COLOMBIA LANDMINES
REUTERS/ALBEIRO LOPERA

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By Patrick Markey

COCORNA, Colombia, Nov 15 (Reuters) - An empty beer bottle and a detonator crafted from a medical syringe were all Colombian rebels needed to make the landmine that ended Andres Restrepo's army career at age 23.

When the explosive shredded his leg earlier this year, Restrepo became one of about three Colombians maimed by mines every day -- a statistic that makes his country the world's leader in mine victims.

"I was No. 17 in the patrol. Sixteen of my comrades passed over that mine and didn't set it off... I was one of the last and stepped on it," Restrepo said at a military hospital in Medellin. "I was lucky... It could have been worse considering what a mine can do."

Violence from Colombia's conflict has decreased as President Alvaro Uribe leads a U.S.-backed campaign to curb a four-decade rebel insurgency and to attack the cocaine trade even as he faces criticism over rights abuses by his troops.

Fighting still kills or displaces thousands each year and across Colombia, poor farmers, children and soldiers are losing limbs to improvised mines left mostly in rural areas by the country's Marxist FARC guerrillas, according to officials.

Ending Colombia's mine tragedy is complicated by the fighting, experts say, as rebels keep sowing mines to halt the advance of soldiers in their cat-and-mouse chase though country's plains, mountains and jungles.

"An ongoing conflict means that everyday somewhere in the country mines are being laid," said Alvaro Jimenez with the Colombia Campaign Against Landmines. "Who will invest in cleaning them up without the certainty no-one will sow more?"

The Landmine Monitor Report, complied by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, reported 7,328 victims worldwide last year although experts believe the figure is higher.

In Colombia, home-made mines crafted from tin cans and containers, hidden in trees, rivers and buried on pathways, killed or wounded 1,100 people last year, according to the Landmine Monitor. It was the highest figure of any country in the world.

Colombia's government reported 952 victims by Nov. 1 this year -- 204 killed and 748 wounded.

More than half of Colombia's victims are soldiers, but in rural hamlets like those in Antioquia department in northwestern Colombia children have been crippled working in fields, farmers maimed bringing in cattle and families wounded as they flee recent combat or threats.

HIDDEN KILLER

Near Medellin, in Antioquia department, troops and tanks are stationed in the green hills around the hamlet of San Lorenzo, a reminder of Uribe's campaign to take back the country from the rebels since his first 2002 election.

But the army can do little to help residents like Maria Giraldo, whose two sons both lost limbs to mines or 11-year-old Diego Clavijo, maimed while hunting with his father.

Near where Clavijo plays soccer on a prosthetic leg, Julio Ernesto Cuevo, 66, sits in a sweltering hut rubbing the bared, raw stump below his knee, now unable to provide for relatives after a mine blast last year.

"Really we don't have any idea how many people die in the mountains, victims of a mine accident, and are just buried right there," said Rocio Pineda, rights director at the Antioquia governor's office.

More than three quarters of the world's governments have signed up to a treaty banning anti-personnel mines, dramatically reducing their use. Armed groups such as Colombia's rebels are now the major culprits.

Exploratory talks with Colombia's second largest rebel group, the National Liberation Army, and a peace deal that demobilized right-wing paramilitaries could lead to those groups helping clear mines they laid.

RED TAPE

Uribe, a U.S.-trained lawyer, has received millions in U.S. aid to fight the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the largest rebel group, which took up arms in the 1960s to fight against inequalities in Colombia. It is branded as a drug-trafficking terrorist group by Washington.

Government troops are now exposed to mines the rebels increasingly use as a defense.

At Medellin's military hospital, Capt. Fabiola Benitize said around 180 army mine victims have passed through her treatment center this year just from Antioquia province and surrounding regions. More than 40 became amputees.

Around the small clinic, soldiers lifted weights on stumps of ruined legs; others practiced walking on wooden feet that would eventually be replaced by prosthetics. One struggled with his leg swollen like a balloon inside in a metal frame.

Anti-mine activists say the helicopter rescues and medical attention for soldiers contrast with the struggle civilians face, despite laws meant to help them. Some receive no long-term treatment; others are caught up in red tape.

Jhon Giraldo fled with his family from their farm in Antioquia department after they received threats from an armed group. In the mountains, he stepped on a mine that destroyed his foot just days from his 13th birthday.

Now his family struggles to get by in one of the cinderblock slums on the hillsides around Medellin, where he and 14 family members live on his sister's salary. All he wants is to finish school and get a job.

"I can do everything I did before, except walk for long periods and carry heavy weights. I can play soccer," said Giraldo, now 15, who was wearing a yellow Brazilian soccer shirt. "Let's see what work I can find."

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Last updated:Mon Nov 20 11:27:52 2006