Landmine question needs to be addressed, experts say

//Att. Subscribers, this report is part of a comprehensive set of features, background reports, interviews and other resources on landmine-related issues titled 'IRIN Web Special on Humanitarian Mine Action, published ahead of the 2004 Nairobi Summit on a Mine Free World.'// Compared to other countries, Uganda does not have a huge problem of landmines and other unexploded ordnance (UXO), but experts say landmine casualties have been reported in the Luwero area of central region, the Rwenzori mountain area in the west and across the north, where a rebel insurgency has continued for 18 years. "Historically, landmines in Uganda have been laid by rebel groups," Auke Lootsma, deputy resident representative of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Uganda, told IRIN on 1 November. "No scientific study has been done on the problem in Uganda, but landmines are a potentially constraining factor in resettling internally displaced people in the country," Lootsma said. "We are supporting the government to build a database, then we will move into mine clearance." Luwero was the site of the war between the rebel National Resistance Movement (NRM) and the government from 1980-86, before the NRM seized power. The Allied Democratic Forces - a rebel group that fought the NRM in the late 1990s, infiltrated and fought in the Rwenzori Mountains. However, it is in the north - where the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has battled the NRM for 18 years - that the problem remains significant. "The LRA has stocks of landmines, but have not used them extensively," Lt Paddy Ankunda, the Ugandan army spokesman in northern Uganda, told IRIN in Gulu town, 380 km from the capital, Kampala, on 26 October. "I don't think the region is heavily mined, although the army has recovered 52 anti-personnel and 34 anti-tank mines from the rebels." On 25 August 2002, President Yoweri Museveni, who led the NRM war, had reported that weapons and equipment - recovered during a military operation called "Operation Iron Fist" - included 174 anti-personnel mines (APMs) and 20 anti-vehicle mines (AVMs). Other sources within the Ugandan army say retreating LRA fighters could be laying landmines in largely uninhabited swathes of land where the people fled years ago, citing areas near the Uganda-Sudan border, including the Dingotona mountains. This, the sources said, would hamper the possibility of internally displaced persons (IDPs) returning to their homes. Relief workers in northern Uganda told IRIN a new APM exploded in early September in Pelah village near Kitgum town, injuring two government soldiers. Two other mines were found in Pajimo camp for IDPs. Another was found near a borehole and another close to a health centre, while a minefield is believed to exist in Pader District in the area between Puranga and Geregere. According to experts, the Ugandan army has not been known to use mines against the rebel groups in the country, although it was suspected of using some during an earlier incursion into neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 2001, the government closed down its mine-producing factory at Nakasongola, near Kampala. In July 2003, it destroyed over 4,000 APMs, but retained a few thousand "for training purposes". Nevertheless, hundreds of Ugandans have been hurt or killed by landmines over the years. According to the Landmine Monitor Report of 2003, at least 34 casualties were recorded in northern Uganda between 2002 and 2003, including five people who were killed when a bus hit a landmine in June 2003. Another 19 people were seriously injured in the incident. Data collected from hospitals in the north shows that 385 people suffered amputations as a result of mine or UXO accidents between 1999 and 2003, making this the single largest recorded cause of disability in the region.