KABUL, April 15: The death of an Afghan deminer on Tuesday coincided with the launch of a campaign to raise awareness of the millions of landmines that contaminate the country’s landscape.
Another worker was injured in the accident in Nangahar province’s Surkhrud district, 110 kilometres east of Kabul, said Richard Dan Kelly, program manager of the UN Mine Action Program for Afghanistan.
“Their names will be added to the rolls of more than 100 de-miners that have been killed in the last 13 years and more than 500 de-miners that have been injured,” Kelly said at the launch of Afghan Mine Action Awareness Month.
The month is being observed to mark the implementation in March of the international mine ban treaty.
Some 7,250 de-miners — all but 15 of them Afghan — are working to clear millions of mines in the war-ravaged country.
“This is a war that we are fighting and we are very proud of participating in this kind of war ... because it is a war to protect innocent people,” said Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN secretary general’s special envoy to Afghanistan.—AFP
