Decision to send deminers away causes concern

A decision by the Eritrean government earlier this week to order the largest international landmine-clearing organisation operating in Eritrea, Halo Trust of the United Kingdom, to leave the country has caused some concern. Phil Lewis, who heads the UN’s Mine Action Coordination Centre (MACC) in Eritrea, said on Thursday that cutting the numbers of skilled de-miners could slow down clearance. “The effect, I guess, on the humanitarian mine action programme in Eritrea is pretty disastrous,” said Lewis, whose centre is part of the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE). The only international company now clearing mines in Eritrea is a US-based firm that has fewer than 100 men and just 12 sniffer dogs. “Since August of last year the programme has gone from over a thousand field operatives to less than a hundred with the obvious effects of that reduction in manpower,” Lewis said. However, he said the move had no implications for the Ethiopia-Eritrea peace process or the demarcation of the border between the two countries, scheduled to start in July. Eritrea is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world. Some of its mines date back to the Second World War. Tens of thousands more were laid during the bitter border conflict with Ethiopia. Almost 100 people, many of them children, have been killed by land mines in Eritrea since the conflict ended in December 2000. “From a personal point of view it is disappointing that another organisation has been asked to leave that was helping the Eritrean people to get rid of mines,” Lewis said. He added that while Eritreans had the skills to carry out mine clearance “very few” were actually working at the moment. “The capacity and the equipment is there,” Lewis said during a weekly video-linked press briefing between Addis Ababa and Asmara. UNMEE also revealed that three Ethiopian troops were injured after their vehicle hit a anti-tank mine near the border region. “From all the information that we have at the moment, from the fact it was a well-travelled road, it does appear to be a newly laid mine,” Lewis said.