Rose Mestika
7 April 2008
Addis Abeba — The International Day of Mine awareness and assistance in mine action was marked at the Ghion Hotel on Friday in the presence of representatives from the Ethiopian Mine Action office (EMAO) government officials and UN agencies and other organizations.
EMAO Deputy Director General Gabriel Lager said on the occasion that landmine problem in Ethiopia has a history of almost three quarter of a century.
He said the problem was now aggravated by the Ethio-Eritrean border conflict but that efforts were being made to mitigate occurrences of accidents from landmines.
"It was immediately after the cessation of hostilities that the government took a measure to protect its citizens from the threat of landmines and unexploded ordnance,".
Blockage to farm lands, pastures, water points and other basic necessities and socio economic infrastructure were not accessible, free movement and safer livelihood around mined areas are hammered and people are killed maimed and traumatized in Afar, Tigray, and Somali regions. Gabriel said it doesn't mean these were the only mine contaminated regions in the country but that the regions were prioritized through the involvement of mine affected communities and regional authorities with EMAO's technical assistance and different survey results from the Ethiopian Land Mine Impact Survey conducted by Norwegian peoples aid and technical surveys conducted by EMAO teams.
According to the presentation made by Zewdu Derebe, Assistant to the Ethiopian Mine Action office General Secretary, since its establishment, EMAO has so far cleared more than 38 million sq. meters of land and more than 211 sql. km mines suspected areas are technically reduced, verified and released for the community used.
Zewdu also mentioned a budget constraint becoming the main challenge for the office to go ahead.
The office need to deploy dispersed demanding teams; replace demising assets including mine detectors, communication equipment, tracks and to fulfil other necessary materials Ethiopia is one of the 156 state party countries that have ratified to the international Anti-personnel Mine-Ban treaty. In line with this, the day was celebrated for the last two years.
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