Germany: Landmine victims worldwide are fewer today

The number of victims caused by landmines and unexploded ordnance devices has decreased worldwide by 16% amounting to 5.751 in 2006, this is what comes out of the yearly report ?Landmine Monitor 2007? published by the ?International campaign to ban Landmines? (ICBL)

Nevertheless the ICBL believes the estimated number of unreported cases is higher, but in any case below 20.000 victims a year.

?The success of the Ottawa convention in reducing the number of victims is due to the unresting commitment of NGO?s?, so Thomas Kuechenmeister of the German alliance for action against landmines (www.landmine.de).
Nevertheless the number of victims has increased tenfold because of conflicts in Pakistan, Burma, Somalia and Lebanon in 2006. The losses are 75% civilians and 34% children. The Landmine Monitor counted 473.000 mines survivors, who need constant support.

According to ICBL 475 millions dollar have been spent for mine actions in the last year, compared to 376 millions of 2005. The German federal government has lastly reduced the expenses for projects against mines to 13,646 million Euro compared to 20,4 millions Euro in 2002. ?Germany has become less and less helpful in the last years?, criticises Thomas Gebauer of Medico International and calls for a significant funds increase in 2008. The decision to this matter has to be taken on the 15 November during a revision meeting at the federal Parliament. The responsible bodies for Landmine.de have allocated more than 20 millions Euro for mine actions in the last years.

?Many countries will not be able to fulfil the requirement of cleaning or destroying mined areas and mine stockpiling in their territories within the next ten years, ? says Francois de Keersmaeker, CEO of Handicap International Germany. Among these are Bosnia- Herzegovina, Cambodia, Chad, Croatia, Mozambique, Niger, Peru, Senegal, Tajikistan, Thailand, Great Britain (the Falk Islands), Venezuela, Yemen and Zimbabwe.

Summing up, since 1999 more that 2.000 square km have been successfully cleaned from landmines and unexploded ordnance devices, which is as big as Luxemburg. According to the report 217.000 antipersonnel mines, 18.000 antivehicle mines and 2,15 million unexploded ordnance devices have been destroyed in 2006. Nevertheless 200.000 square km still need to be cleaned, which corresponds more or less to the size of Byelorussia or Senegal.

More info:
www.landmine.de
www.icbl.org