Mine clearance in Eritrea sees improvements: UN

ASMARA, Nov 17 (AFP) — Mine clearance in Eritrea has led to a lower accident rate since the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre (MACC) arrived in the Horn of Africa country in August 2000, MACC programme manager Phil Lewis has said.

“Since MACC arrived in Eritrea in August 2000, after the 1998-2000 border war between Eritrea and Ethiopia, the number of accidents caused by mines has decreased every year,” Lewis told AFP in an interview on Tuesday.

“The clearance is going on well and the population is more aware of mines,” Lewis said.

MACC has a staff of 63 and operates essentially in the Temporary Security Zone (TSZ), a 1000-km long and 25-km wide zone (625 to 15 miles) along the border with Ethiopia.

The Eritrean government also has its own national mine action programme.

“There have been no accidents in our zone for six weeks now, the longest period without accidents since the MACC arrived in Eritrea,” Lewis stressed.

Mines in Eritrea are not only found in the TSZ, but that is where their density is the highest, he said.

Since 2000, 111 people have been killed and 293 injured by mines in the TSZ and adjacent areas, “but we believe that figure to be the tip of the iceberg, as many more incidents in isolated areas are not reported. A shepherd dies, the villagers bury him and get on with life,” Lewis said.

Since January 2004, 13 people have been killed and 17 injured by mines, he added.

“We don’t know how many mines are left in Eritrea, but we estimate them at between 100,000 and 300,000,” Lewis said, pointing out that most of them date from the 1998-2000 war, but others are a legacy from the Second World War and the 1961-1991 struggle for independence against Ethiopia.

Since the end of the war in 2000, “no new minefields have been laid down, but there have been 46 newly laid anti-tank mines in the TSZ, all randomly laid on roads and (they) have blown up, among others, school buses and militia vehicles.”

Eritrea blames Ethiopia for the anti-tank mines, but some diplomats, who asked not to be named, suspect an internal “Jihad” movement.

The MACC also deals with unexploded ordnances (UXOs), like old bombs or grenades, which also “cause more casualties than mines and are probably responsible for 65 percent of accidents.”

It also participates in mine-risk education for the local population.

Community mine-risk education cells, formed by a national non-governmental organisation with funds from UNICEF, have had “a good effect.”

Accidents often occur when “kids or shepherd boys play with the mines, or when they have to go and fetch their animals that had strayed into a minefield, 70 percent of casualties being under 18 years,” Lewis said.