Somaliland har i den seneste tid oplevet en stigning i eksplosioner af miner. Embedsmænd opfordrer derfor til at informere om minefarer i skolerne, da størstedelen af ofrene hidtil har været børn. Det skriver IRIN News.
HARGEISA, 2 February 2011 (IRIN): “Child victims of land mines have increased in Somaliland in the past two months,” Ahmed Ali Maah, director of the Somaliland Mine Action Center (SMAC), told IRIN. “Some 93 children have been killed by landmines in the past three years.”
Farhan Abdi Saleban, a child protection officer with Comprehensive Community-Based Rehabilitation in Somaliland (CCBRS), a local NGO, said three children died and five were injured by landmines in January; and two others were injured in December 2010.
“Case fatalities and injuries associated with mine and UXO explosions have lately increased in the country,” Saleban said. “A high proportion of the victims are children, according to comparative data/information recorded for the past two months.”
Saleban said strategic interventions, including effective continuing mine-risk education and psychological rehabilitation of landmine survivors, were needed.
No minefield records
According to SMAC, landmines were laid in Somaliland over two decades, and during three different conflicts. The first conflict (1964) and the second (1977-78) were between the Somali Democratic Republic and Ethiopia over what is now Ethiopia’s Somali Region. The third conflict (1981-91) was when the Somali National Movement waged an armed struggle against the Somali National Army of the then Somali president, Mohamed Siyad Barre.
According to the UN Development Programme (UNDP), 400,000-800,000 landmines were laid in Somaliland between 1988 and 1991 alone.
However, no minefield records were kept, contributing to the problem as exact locations remain unknown.
