September 19, 2006	Tuesday	Sha'aban 25, 1427

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PESHAWAR, Sept 18: The government and the international community have been asked to ban production, trade, stockpiling and transfer of anti-personnel landmines to save unwary people from losing their lives or becoming handicapped.

The call was voiced on Monday by speakers at a news conference by Naveed Alam of the Community Appraisal and Motivation Programme (CAMP) and Imran Khan of Sustainable Peace and Development Organisation (SPADO) to release the Pakistan Landmine Monitor Report of 2006 at the press club here.

They said that landmine incidents had caused a total of 84 deaths, 216 injuries in Balochistan and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) during the current year and were becoming a constant threat to the people’s lives.

“Landmine killed 71 people in Balochistan, six in North Waziristan Agency, three in Bajaur Agency one each in Sindh and South Waziristan Agency,” they said, adding that landmines were indiscriminate killers, because they did not discriminate between a combatant or a non-combatant, a child or an adult, and they could strike in war and during peace alike. Landmines were hidden enemies of people, they said.

“They blow up those who step on them and most of the victims are children,” they said, adding that it was a “devilish tool, especially designed not to kill but to disable its victims”.

Citing the landmines’ report of 2003, he said that from May 2002 to July 2003, only six countries — India, Iraq, Burma, Nepal, Pakistan and Russia — used landmines on a regular basis, they said. According to them, Fata, especially Bajaur and Kurram tribal agencies, had the most number of landmine victims.

They said the tribal areas of Pakistan, sharing border with the war-torn Afghanistan, had been infested with landmines and vast quantities of unexploded ordnances (UXOs) since 1979, the year the Afghan war began.

These lethal and hidden weapons had played havoc with thousands of lives in Fata, but unfortunately like Afghanistan, these people had not received proper attention or relief.