5/12/2003
Landmines Continue To Kill 50 People A Day

Landmines and unexploded ordnance kill an average of 50 people a day according to figures issued by the UN's Mine Action Service and there are currently tens of millions of landmines stockpiled by countries around the world. And speaking in New York the agency's director Martin Barber said that the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction has been signed by 141 countries, but some States were continuing to make or deploy landmines.

Agencies battling the scourge of landmines say they need $288 million next year to remove mines, educate people about avoiding them and help any victims. The biggest de-mining operation was in Afghanistan, Mr Barber said, but added that the number of people being killed by landmines in that country was on the decline.

And in Los Angeles United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed gratitude to two women whose advocacy of landmine clearing operations has helped reduce accidental post-war killings and restored mined land to productive use."Today I am especially grateful to one member of Walt Disney's family, his daughter and our gracious co-host Diane Disney Miller, who is so generously and consistently committed to supporting de-mining efforts in Afghanistan.

"I am equally thankful to Heidi Kuhn, who founded the Roots of Peace in 1997."

He said Ms. Kuhn's astonishing energy and enthusiasm and the success of her California-based organization in helping to eliminate landmines and to create lands of peace and prosperity – usually vineyards and grain fields – provided inspiration to all.

"A world without mines is still far away, but it is not an impossible dream," Mr. Annan said. "More and more Governments agree that mines have no place in the civilized kind of society in which Walt Disney spoke of raising his family."