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KABUL: Nearly 1.3 million people are at risk from mines buried across Afghanistan during past conflicts that remain despite 20 years of international clearance efforts, UN officials said Wednesday.
“We know exactly where these minefields are. They are all over the country,” said Alan Macdonald, programme director for the Mine Action Coordination Centre of Afghanistan, a UN body.
The explosives were buried during three recent conflicts: the 1980s war against the Russians, the early 1990s civil war, and during fighting between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban before it was ousted from power in 2001.
“There have been three key wars fought here. In all three of those wars, mines were laid in significant number,” said Macdonald.
“By the end of 2011, there remained 6,048 hazardous areas affecting 588 kilometres across 1,930 communities.”
According to the organisation's statistics, 1,277,857 people were at risk.
Some 375 people were killed or injured by anti-personnel mines, anti-tank mines or unexploded ordinance in 2011 compared to a record high of 2,027 in 2001, said the organisation.
“In 20 years, we have cleared more than 500,000 anti-personnel mines and more than 22,000 anti-tank mines, and more than 15 million unexploded munitions,” said Macdonald, who described the clearance project as a “major success”.
“We know the characteristics of the minefields and the characteristics of the communities around which may lead to future victims. So we prioritise (clearance of the most dangerous minefields). That's why we have the decline in the number of accidents.”
Despite some success, Afghanistan remains littered with buried explosives. And in recent years the Taliban have made cheap homemade bombs or improvised explosive devices (IEDs) their weapon of choice.
The international community spends about 90 million dollars a year to clear landmines in Afghanistan, one of the most heavily mined countries in the world.
