Six killed in mine blast

Six CARE International workers were killed when a landmine exploded under their vehicle, the development and relief organisation said on Thursday. The blast, caused by an anti-tank mine, happened last Friday on the main road through the town of Chipeta in Angola's central Bie province, CARE's Country Director Douglas Steinberg told IRIN. The dead, all Angolans, were travelling in a trailer attached to a tractor and worked for one of the organisation's agricultural training programmes. Three were killed instantly, the others died later in hospital. "The tractor pulled off the road to a spot in front of an electric lamp post, and detonated what must have been an anti-tank mine," Steinberg said. "It blew the trailer well into the air and tore it apart." Both the government army and the then rebel movement UNITA used landmines during 27 years of civil conflict, which finally ended in 2002. Steinberg said CARE had taken all the necessary safety precautions and did not operate in areas deemed unsafe. "There was a lot of traffic on this road. We had been driving up and down it for a year and a half. It had been declared safe by the UN security unit in Angola for about two years," he said. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said it was in the process of studying a report of the incident prepared by demining group, the Halo Trust. "Clearly this was an area which was considered to be safe under normal working conditions. It should have been checked but clearly something in the system didn't function," said Philip Dive, OCHA's evaluation officer. "There will be a follow-up ... but certainly this is something which will be checked through very thoroughly and lessons will be learned," he told IRIN. Angola is one of the world's most heavily mined countries, but no-one knows for sure how many are still scattered across the country. "Since the war finished, we are receiving more reports of accidents. It's difficult to talk about figures because as we get better access to the countryside, as the post-war chaos clears up, we hear more about it," Dive said. "But there are millions rather than thousands. It is still a very big problem and the number is sufficiently high to be a concern for a very long time to come," he added. The number of injuries and fatalities as a result of exploding landmines tends to rise during the rainy season, as swollen rivers move mines and drivers veer off the road to avoid pot-holes and broken down vehicles. Steinberg said his organisation's work would continue despite the incident. "We'll carry on. This accident could never have been foreseen. I can't imagine what we could have done differently. The other choice is to stop our work, but that doesn't serve the people of Angola," he said.