For a world without landmine

Landmine-busting teams are fighting a losing battle: for every mine that is cleared, 20 new ones are laid. A year after the death of Britain’s Princess Diana, whose high profile trips to Angola and Bosnia highlighted the scourge of landmines, donation were still pouring on to fund the mammoth task of clearing an estimated 100 million unexploded mines scattered across 70 countries from Angola to Afghanistan.

Although 126 countries have now signed the 1997 Ottawa Convention banning landmines, a child is either maimed or killed by a landmine somewhere in the world every hour, according to the United Nation. Some experts think they are going to have to change their ways before they can beat one of the world’s most cruel menaces.

Ingenious devices have been designed to make mine clearing easier. In the last year, engineers have come up with a string of ingenious devices to enable mine clearing teams to work faster and more cheaply, but some experts believe the only way to make a difference would be to ease tight security standards on de-mining.

So far, none of the recent inventions, including a remote-controlled sweeper, a wind-up detector and a ‘sniffer’ that search for mines like dog, have passed a test for 99.8% efficiency in the field. Safe and liable equipment is the priority for highly trained teams risking their lives to save others.

However, expert in the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) are wary of cheap and easy answer unless they prove to be totally secure. MAG, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for its campaign to ban anti-personal mines, works in six of the most mine ridden-countries. So far, it says, it has seen no real impact from the new technologies. “Too many devices are developed with little understanding of the real practices of landmine clearance or the real condition of the world.”