EC funds mine clearance

The European Commission will provide 8 million euros (US $9.7 million) to Ethiopia to support humanitarian demining in the Horn of Africa nation, which is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world. The funds will be channelled through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Ethiopian Mine Action Office (EMAO) to finance demining in Tigray and Afar regions over the next three years. Tim Clarke, head of the EC mission in Ethiopia, told reporters on Tuesday that the effort would benefit an estimated 500,000 people in the two regions. He was speaking on the occasion of the first International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action, which will be observed on 4 April every year. Ethiopia and neighbouring Eritrea are among the world's most heavily mined countries, a legacy of successive conflicts that have ravaged the Horn of Africa for the past 70 years. There are approximately two million mines in Ethiopia, while in Eritrea there are between 1.5 million and 1.65 million mines and some 300,000 units of unexploded ordnance (UXOs). Aid agencies have warned that landmines and UXOs hamper attempts to move families who were displaced by conflict to return to their homes. Mines also prevent people from cultivating their land to produce food. "Recognising that there is a direct negative link between socioeconomic development and the presence of landmines, we, and our respective organisations, consider this [mines clearance] a priority," said Clarke. According to a recent study of landmine impact in Ethiopia conducted between 2001 and 2004 by Norwegian People's Aid, 588 people were killed and 737 people were injured in landmine accidents during that period. The survey further showed that while 82 percent of the communities affected by landmines are were in Afar, Tigray and the Somali regional states, the problem was by no means limited to these regions. Max Gaylard, the director of UN Mine Action Service, said on Monday that although 15,000 men, women and children around the world lose their lives or limbs to landmines each year, sustained international action could eradicate the problem. In the late 1990s, he said, there were around 25,000 landmine victims annually. The number is decreasing every year due to the mobilisation of the international community, the international mine-ban treaty signed in Ottawa, Canada, in 1997, and the completion of comprehensive surveys in mine-affected countries. "Some years ago, we were talking about hundreds of years to solve problems of mine action […] Now we're talking about maybe a decade - certainly years and not many decades - so we've come a long way," he said.