Hollywood actor Danny Glover calls for ban on landmines

American actor Danny Glover on Wednesday criticised the deadly legacy of landmines, which were responsible for more than 8,000 casualties last year and called for a complete ban of their use and production. The star of the Lethal Weapon films, among others, spoke out as he began a five-day visit to Ethiopia where he aims to highlight the horrific impact of anti-personnel mines (APMs). "We must rid the world of landmines," Glover said in a statement released by the UN. "They kill innocent people and children, and no weapon should outlast war itself," he added while on his first trip as a goodwill ambassador for the UN’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Over 80 percent of the estimated 20,000 landmine victims each year are civilians and at least one in five are children, according to UNICEF. Glover is expected to visit areas heavily mined during the war with neighbouring Eritrea and will meet with politicians and mine survivors. His comments also come ahead of a key four-day summit in Nairobi, Kenya next week to campaign for a mine-free world and for worldwide stockpiles to be reduced. So far, 143 nations have signed on to the 1997 Ottawa Convention that calls for banning the use of APMs and their destruction, to include 48 African states. According to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, some 83 countries around the word remain infested with landmines. Since the international treaty prohibiting APMs took effect five years ago, use of the weapons around the world has fallen dramatically, ICBL noted. A recently completed two-year Ethiopian Landmine Impact Survey said the weapons blight the lives of two million people in the country. Norwegian People’s Aid, who carried out the survey, said 16,000 people have been victims of blasts – with 1,295 killed or injured in the last two years.