Focus on the risk of unexploded ordnance

Afghanistan's estimated eight to ten million land mines and unexploded ordnance - the result of two decades of war, claimed 88 casualties a month last year, according to one mine-action group. Experts maintain that the ongoing military campaign, with its controversial use of cluster bombs and the associated displacement of Afghans into unfamiliar areas, can only dramatically increase civilian casualty rates. Canadian former Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy has questioned the utility of certain ordnance being used by coalition forces in Afghanistan. A member of the Oxfam independent fact-finding mission on the regional humanitarian crisis, Axworthy said that after having spoken to Afghan women who had recently crossed into Pakistan, it was clear to him that certain weapons were having a dramatic impact on civilians inside Afghanistan. Among these were cluster bombs, the main casing of which contains about 200 bomblets designed to scatter over a specific area. With armour-piercing and antipersonnel capabilities, the bomb can cause significant damage to buildings and people. Normally used for disabling targets such as airfields, 10 percent of the bomblets dropped fail to explode, littering the area and posing a constant threat until cleared. "In the Kosovo crisis, we raised similar concerns about certain bombs being used, and their use was stopped," Axworthy told reporters in a press briefing in Islamabad on Tuesday. In a statement on its findings released on Tuesday, Oxfam stated that the protection of civilians had to rise to the top of the agenda for the parties to the conflict. In particular, Oxfam called for the use of ordnance which had a disproportionate impact on civilians, such as cluster bombs, to cease. "Both the forces which control security on the ground and in the sky have an equal responsibility to protect civilians," it stated. Oxfam has also called on the parties to the conflict to provide security and resources to ensure that UN de-mining activities can resume. Axworthy told reporters that the ongoing hostilities had also brought de-mining activities to a halt, which, he said, would have significant repercussions on civilians uprooted by war. "Unless more active de-mining can take place, then many civilians will not be able to return home for a long time," he said. The UN Mine Action Centre for Afghanistan (MACA) has also warned of increased dangers to civilians since the US-led coalition strikes began a month ago. MACA's programme manager, Dan Kelly, told IRIN on Tuesday he was especially concerned over the increased population movements, the effects of the ongoing military strikes, and the possibility of fresh mining along new front lines. With large-scale internal displacement in progress, and refugees on the move, Kelly said there was now a higher risk of mine injury. "People are moving from cities to rural areas and are stranded along borders. They are in unfamiliar surroundings and thus [more] prone to explosives. These people are at great risk of being victims of mines and other unexploded ordnance [UXO]," he said. Those fleeing urban areas were particularly at risk, as the cities of Herat, Jalalabad, Mazar-e Sharif, Kandahar and Kabul all had UXO and mines in areas adjacent to them. Kelly added that the safety markings bordering minefields would not necessarily be clear to displaced people passing through. The current US-led military campaign was adding to Afghanistan's legacy of UXO. Kelly said his mine-action teams inside the country were not trained to safely clear this UXO. To facilitate clearance in civilian areas, Kelly appealed to the military coalition to provide information on targets, types and quantities of ordnance that had been used. He also raised concerns about striking ammunition depots, which could spread UXO in an up to five-kilometre radius. In the meantime, with the help of radio broadcasting services, the mine-action office has urged Afghans to avoid military compounds, and not to touch anything that looked unfamiliar. Despite this, there have been reports of Afghans picking up UXO. In one incident, a UN official reported that villagers of Qala Shaker, near Herat in western Afghanistan, had picked up a bomblet from a cluster bomb dropped on 23 October, and carried it to show staff at the local mine-action centre. Fortunately it did not detonate. However, a spokesman for the UN Coordinator's office, Hasan Firdous, confirmed on Tuesday that two children from the same village has been injured when they picked up such an unexploded bomblet. Mine-action staff in the area also confirmed one civilian death and one injury as a result of a similar device in the village of Eshaq Sulamain Zai, also near Herat. Meanwhile, Kelly said he was trying to arrange emergency training programmes for some 4,000 mine-action staff who would be faced with the task clearing unfamiliar coalition UXO. Hampering his current operations inside Afghanistan was the loss of equipment, mainly vehicles and communications equipment, to Taliban armed elements. A mine-action office in Kabul was also damaged by a coalition strike, which killed four people. Movements of the Taliban and Northern Alliance front lines would also serve to bring about more mine-related incidents. "These front lines will surely result in new mine fields, further complicating an already grim situation," he said. Meanwhile, the Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), called on the US to impose an immediate moratorium on the deployment of cluster bombs and antipersonnel mines in Afghanistan. Reinforcing the appeal to share relevant information with UN mine-clearance experts in Afghanistan, the organisation also called for the US to clear all UXO resulting from the campaign. In a statement released on 2 November, PHR said cluster bomblets had caused high rates of civilian casualties in Kosovo in 1999, and risked doing the same in Afghanistan. The executive director of PHR, Leonard Rubenstein, said it was time for all nations, including the United States, to recognise that both antipersonnel mines and cluster bombs were indiscriminate and caused a devastating toll. According to UN reports, Afghanistan is among the most heavily mined countries in the world, with 732 million square kilometres of its area littered with mines or UXO.