COLOMBO: The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has begun a campaign to raise landmine awareness among farmers in Sri Lanka to avoid an expected upsurge in casualties during the planting season.

The first week of both July and August have been designated “National Mine Action” weeks across the country by a consortium of organizations tackling the landmine problem, UNICEF said on Tuesday in a statement.

“July, August and September are the most dangerous months in Sri Lanka for landmine injuries,” the statement said. “Each year at this time, people return to their fields to begin planting and harvesting their crops.”

“It is then that the lands of the northeast, seeded with explosives, reap their deadly harvest.”

UNICEF said previous landmine awareness campaigns in the island’s northern and eastern regions had helped reduce casualties ever since a truce went into effect in February 2002.

—AFP