DONDO, 27 October 2009 IRIN: Mozambique’s effort to become the first of the world’s major mine-contaminated countries to be declared mine-free is faltering on the home straight.
There are a variety of reasons: Mozambique’s donor-dependent government no longer sees demining operations as a priority; the withdrawal of humanitarian demining operations, sending the wrong signals to donors that the job was done, and that the focus of global demining activities has largely shifted to Iraq and Afghanistan.
– We can finish this. We can get rid of them [landmines] … This is not a never-ending story, Aderito Ismael, Mozambique’s Mine Action Coordinator for Handicap International (HI), a non-governmental organization, told IRIN. – I want to be out of a job by 2013, or maybe by 2012.
Handicap International, one of three humanitarian demining operations still working in the mine-infested territory, is only continuing operations through the support of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), while the HALO Trust – Mozambique’s largest humanitarian deminer – is working below capacity because of funding shortfalls. APOPO is the third and smallest of the operations in the country.
When demining activities began in 1992, predictions were that clearing anti-personnel landmines and unexploded ordnance left by four decades of independence and civil wars could take about 50 years.
– Mozambique could set an example of a country significantly affected by mines … ticked off as cleared … we are talking about a s chief technical advisor seconded to Mozambique’s Institute of National De-mining, told IRIN.
If donor funding had not subsided, Mozambique may have already lost its sobriquet as one of world’s most heavily mined countries, leaving such countries as Angola, Afghanistan and Cambodia as reluctant holders of the title.
According to Mozambique’s 2008-2014 National Mine Action Plan, between 1993 and 2006, 269 million square metres were demined, 173.091 landmines were cleared and 133,143 items of unexploded ordnance were destroyed.
