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Landmine ratifications pass halfway mark

"Ratification will be a giant step towards the demining of the world," Mr. Annan said. "Delay will only add to lives lost and to the growing expense of removing these silent killers from the earth." He urged all countries that have signed the treaty to move swiftly to ratify it and expressed hope that governments that have not signed the treaty will now do so.

The treaty, signed last December in Ottawa, Canada, prohibits the use, production, development, acquisition, sale, stockpiling and transfer of anti-personnel landmines. These weapons kill and maim 26,000 civilians a year, about half of them women and children.

"The agreement to abolish these horrific weapons is being achieved with remarkable swiftness and resolve," Ms. Bellamy said. "Now that we have 50 per cent of the requisite ratifications, we have every hope that governments will complete the achievement with the greatest possible haste."

More than 120 governments have taken the preliminary step of signing the agreement. The 20 ratifiers are Belize, Bolivia, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Djibouti, Fiji, Holy See, Hungary, Ireland, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Mexico, Niue, Peru, San Marino, Switzerland, Trinidad & Tobago, and Turkmenistan.

Yet the threat of landmines persists, with tens of millions of mines laid in some 70 countries around the world and the continuing threat of more mining. "Wherever mining occurs," Ms. Bellamy said, "it is part of a shameful, growing tendency to make children and women the principal targets of violence in conflict situations."

On the positive side, Ms. Bellamy she expressed gratitude that the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) has been deeply involved in the movement to ban landmines. In February Ms. Bellamy and OAU Secretary-General, Salim Ahmed Salim, issued a joint call to hasten ratification of the treaty in Africa and to make the continent a mine-free zone.

"Besides the lives they have claimed and gruesome injuries they have inflicted," Ms. Bellamy said, "landmines or even the suspicion of a mine will effectively render useless agricultural land, forests, orchards and cuts access to water points, schools and health services. They also prevent emergency aid to communities except by costly air lifts."

Reports from countries such as Angola, Burundi and Sierra Leone consistently indicate that mines are still being laid. In Angola, for example, landmines have reappeared in areas which had been cleared.

UNICEF has worked with several partners on major landmine education programmes including recent launches of multilingual Superman and Wonder Woman comic books to alert children in specific regions to the dangers of hidden mines. In addition, UNICEF has helped create dramas, games, puppet shows and songs to teach children around the world how to recognize a mine and what to do when they encounter one.

To help the tens of thousands maimed by mines, UNICEF works with partners to support prosthetic centres and to provide psychosocial care for landmine victims.

"The world community must ensure that the landmine treaty comes into force as quickly as possible," Ms. Bellamy said, "to help bring the day when these weapons are remembered as a menace of the past."

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