Landmines still a menace in Uganda, report says

Landmines have killed 425 people in Uganda since 1998 and left 385 others amputated in northern and western Uganda, according to a report published on Tuesday by an anti-landmine group. "It is estimated that since 1998, 425 people have been killed by mines," the report by Uganda Campaign to Ban Landmines (UCBL) said. "In northern Uganda, the government has identified 385 people with amputations as a result of mines or unexploded ordinance incidents between 1999 and 2004." UCBL said, however, the reported casualty figure was "likely understated, as there is no comprehensive data collection system in Uganda". The report entitled 'The Landmine Situation In Uganda 1999-2004', said fatality and injury figures are however under-reported, as data was only available from the military, the media and general hospital records. Over the period under review, the mines were mainly planted by the Lords Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel group that has been fighting government forces in the north of the country for the past 18 years. Their brutal war has displaced 1.6 million civilians and forced thousands of children into fighting, it noted. Most of the victims were from war-ravaged northern Uganda, though several were also from the western region where an Islamic fundamentalist guerrilla group, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), tried to wage war in the late 1990s with bases in neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo. According to the report, both government forces and President Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Army have used landmines in the early 1980s. It was during the bush war of the 1980s that brought Museveni to power in 1986. "In 2000 and 2001, Landmine Monitor reported serious and credible allegations indicating a strong possibility of Ugandan use of anti-personnel mines [APMs] in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, particularly in the June 2000 battle" with the Rwandan army for the town of Kisangani, the report stated. The Ugandan government has denied such use. The report notes there was no organised mine clearance activity underway in Uganda, but mine risk education was being carried out in the northern districts of Gulu, Kitgum and Pader, and in Kasese in western Uganda. In July last year, Uganda finished destroying its stockpile of APMs, but retained 1,764 mines for training purposes, according to the army. The Canadian government and other donors, including the UN Development Programme and the Germany Technical Development Agency, funded the exercise. The report states, however, that Uganda - part of category of countries that receive less than a million dollars for mine action programs - ceased production of the mines in 1995 and also proceeded to decommission the manufacturing plant. "Uganda appears to need additional assistance in meeting the needs of mine survivors," Cornelius Nyamboki, the Africa Landmine Monitor research coordinator, said. According to the lobby group Handicap International, who has been campaigning for the ban of landmine use, between 15,000 and 20,000 people fall victim to landmines or explosives in the world every year. In Africa, 15 countries were severely affected by landmines, with as many as 297 victims reported in Ethiopia last year. Angola is among the top three countries in the world most affected, but according to the lobby group, the situation was improving with its ratification of the Mine Ban Treaty. It had 178 victims last year, compared to 174 in Burundi, 75 in Somalia, 53 in Uganda and 19 in Senegal. ALSO SEE: Laying Landmines to Rest? IRIN Web Special on Humanitarian Mine Action