Landmine awareness education returns to the villages

Information campaigns on the threat of landmines have resumed in villages throughout Eritrea. The move comes 18 months after nearly all mine-awareness programmes in this, one of Africa’s most mine-affected countries, were suspended in 2002. Known as Mine Risk Education (MRE), the information programmes are being carried out by teams from the newly established Eritrean Demining Organisation (EDO). The renewed expansion, in recent months, of MRE programmes has occurred with support from the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the UN Development Programme and the Mine Action Coordination Centre of the UN Mission to Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE-MACC). Conventionally, MRE is carried out in tandem with actual mine clearance in recognition of the slow speed of mine clearance and the urgent need to offer mine-affected populations risk-avoidance strategies. According to the manager of UNMEE-MACC, some 27,927 people received MRE directly from UNMEE-MACC in 2003. From January to March 2004, a further 9,000 people received MRE. Since the beginning of UNMEE-MACC operations in Eritrea, over 214,000 people have received MRE from combined operations by all agencies through community presentations, teacher training, roadside billboards and radio programmes, among other methods. "In the past few months, the MRE teams have made great progress," said Leila Blacking, the UNICEF spokeswoman in the capital, Asmara. "Landmine-awareness education is really the first line of defence for people living in heavily mined areas - especially children, who are most vulnerable to the dangers. With the right information, communities can then take steps to protect themselves from the landmine threat. In this way, we know that MRE saves lives." GOVERNMENT REORGANISATION OF MINE ACTION On 21 July 2002, the Eritrean government issued "Proclamation 123", which reorganised control over humanitarian mine action in the country. The proclamation established the Eritrean Demining Authority as the coordinator for all humanitarian mine-risk education programmes except for certain operations organised by the UNMEE-MACC in the Temporary Security Zone (TSZ). The proclamation ordered most of the international mine-action organisations active in the country at the time to cease operations. Most mine-related programmes at that time conducted by humanitarian mine action agencies came to a halt. In the ensuing months, the only provider of MRE in the country was the UNMEE-MACC. Using capability originally mandated to serve UN peacekeeping personnel, the UNMEE-MACC began to serve an increasing number of civilians living in or near heavily mined areas within the TSZ. The peacekeepers operated in Debub and Gash Barka - areas of extreme mine contamination left over from the 1998-2000 border war between Eritrea and Ethiopia. It is estimated that among the women and children benefited from the UNMEE-MACC’s mine-education programmes in 2003 were Eritrean internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Wuran IDP camp in Tserona, which lies within the TSZ. Notwithstanding the substantial MRE efforts of the UNMEE-MACC, there was still no national MRE programme in place outside the TSZ although the government began setting up its own structures for mine action. THE NATURE OF THE THREAT After three decades of protracted war and 30 months of border conflict, Eritrea has what the International Campaign to Ban Landmines describes as a "significant landmine and unexploded ordnance [UXO] problem". The main contamination is due to the recent armed conflict along the 1,000-km border between Ethiopia and Eritrea. According to the Landmine Monitor Report for 2003, an Eritrean demining official estimated that in addition to this up to 150,000 mines might have remained uncleared in the ground after the war for Eritrean independence. It also reported that during recent conflict, Eritrean forces laid an estimated 240,000 mines, while Ethiopian forces laid between 150,000 to 200,000 mines. The report records UN statistics suggesting that a high percentage of landmine/UXO casualties in Eritrea are children and young people aged under 20 years. In 2002, 78 new mine/UXO casualties from 45 mine-related incidents in the TSZ were reported to the UNMEE-MACC. The report said that the reported casualties may not reflect the actual total, as a number of landmine incidents and casualties in the TSZ are believed to go unreported. There are no official figures on the number of mine-related injuries and deaths outside the TSZ, although unofficial accounts of landmine incidents are considered to be common. NEW AGREEMENT PAVES THE WAY In July 2003, a formal agreement between the EDO and UNICEF was signed paving the way for the resumption of a nationally directed MRE programme, and providing for the MRE to return to areas outside the TSZ with full agreement of the government. "Incorporating MRE programmes into the new [government demining] structure was one of our highest priorities," Habtom Bairu, a director of the EDO, told IRIN in Asmara. In August 2003, the first MRE teams were deployed by the EDO, with UNICEF support, in some of the most mine-affected areas of Eritrea. Six teams of four people each and fluent in the local languages launched awareness activities in five of the most mine-affected areas in Eritrea: Adi Keyih, Teseney, Assab, Mendefera and Barentu. The teams conducted classroom presentations, preliminary teacher training and, perhaps most significantly, began launching community networking to establish an ongoing MRE presence in the communities. "The ultimate goal is to establish community-based landmine and UXO awareness. It has to be based within the community. That is the only way it can be truly sustainable," said Blacking. Special emphasis has been placed on targeting children, according to UNICEF and UNMEE officials. "We now have children-to-children programmes. We give special training to advanced children, who themselves act as trainers for other children. This is most effective," said Bairu. Half of all reported mine and UXO accidents in 2003, where the age of the victim was known, affected individuals under 15 years of age, according to UNMEE-MACC figures. GOVERNMENT, UNICEF WORK ON NATIONAL PROGRAMME While the EDO/UNICEF education teams began their field operations in the autumn of 2003, UNICEF began consultations with Eritrean government ministries on a variety of other nationwide MRE activities. This has resulted in at least four significant MRE achievements. These comprise a nationwide MRE teacher training programme recently completed in Barentu, Teseney and Mendefera, which trained over 250 teachers to independently include mine and UXO awareness in the curricula of their schools. The second was the recruitment of community volunteers in each of Eritrea's 60 or so districts. These community leaders will be trained to disseminate information on landmines and UXOs and to collect information on landmine victims they encounter in the communities. Thirdly, the information ministry is now producing 48 MRE radio programmes - half of them for children - to be broadcast in various languages nationwide. The last of the four achievements is that the education ministry has approved the inclusion of MRE in the primary school curriculum nationwide. This will entail the production of 10,000 notebooks and 10,000 MRE badges to support the MRE lessons and presentations. "One of the most important achievements since MRE restarted," Blacking said, "has been the Ministry of Education’s agreement to include MRE into the primary school curriculum. This will give MRE an unprecedented level of exposure in the community and, hopefully, translate to greater awareness amongst youth on the dangers of mines and UXOs." "UNICEF believes that introducing MRE into the schools will not only save lives but will enable young people to develop freely and concentrate on a more promising future," Blacking added. A PROMISING RESUMPTION Of the 70,000 people receiving MRE since the deployment of awareness-raising teams in August 2003, some 54,771 are children and 6,636 are refugees and IDPs. Whereas it is a promising resumption, UNICEF and UNMEE have, however, cautioned against measuring the effectiveness of MRE programmes simply in the context of the large numbers of programme recipients over the past few months. "Just because a child sits in a classroom doesn’t mean her behaviour will necessarily be modified. The numbers so far are good, but numbers alone can’t tell the whole story," Blacking told IRIN. "The MRE programmes will continue to need vital technical, administrative and financial support for them to be sustainable into the future." Nevertheless, it is the consensus of the mine action-community in Eritrea, in various interviews with IRIN, that MRE is making important progress. "The past few months have been very encouraging. The commitment of the EDO teams has been impressive. One team even went to the funeral of a mine victim - to give mine-risk education to the mourners. We are optimistic that this enthusiasm from the teams, and the progress on the ground, will continue," said Blacking.