Mine Awareness Day
April 4th marked International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action, a time to remember the deadly threat land mines pose to millions of people in at least seventy-eight countries around the world. According to the United Nations, landmines and explosive remnants of war kill or injure thousands people each year. The UN Children’s Fund says that more than one-third of all civilian mine casualties are children.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is supporting the first International Day for Mine Awareness on 4 April 2006 fully aware that refugees often face the danger of returning to countries where mines have been sewn during conflict. Eighty-four countries in the world are affected by landmines and unexploded ordnance. South Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of refugees are now anxiously waiting to go home, is one of them.
A comprehensive peace agreement signed in January 2005 ended 21 years of civil war in south Sudan. Hundreds of thousands of refugees are now preparing to go home after years in refugee camps in neighbouring countries. One of the major dangers they will face in rebuilding their lives is trying to live safely in a country sown with thousands of mines and unexploded ordnance, as it will take many years to clear these devastating devices.
UNHCR has been working with different mine clearance organisations such as Mine Action Group (MAG), the UNMAS (United Nations Mine Actions Service), the UN Inter-Agency Coordination Group for Mine Action, and is in the process of contracting various partners to increase its participation on the ground in demining activities, including the Fondation Suisse de Déminage (FSD) and the Danish Demining Group (DDG).
The main message of the day is that the threat of landmines and other remnants of war or unexploded ordnance can be solved in years, not decades.