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Nobel laureate to highlight mine-awareness in Kosovo

"The risk presented by mines and unexploded ordnance in Kosovo is extremely high," Ms. Williams said. "Children are particularly in danger and many have already suffered severe injury and death because they have inadvertently stepped on these lethal and illegal weapons of war."

Ms. Sinclair and Ms. Williams will meet with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), UN officials and military representatives and will devote a full day to meeting with Kosovar children and to participating with them in mine-awareness activities.

"Our purpose," Ms. Sinclair said, "is to underscore the importance of all aspects of UNICEF's mine-awareness work and help intensify the efforts to protect children and all others in Kosovo from further harm due to landmines, booby-traps and unexploded ordnance. The war in Kosovo has been devastating enough without prolonging its effects through failure to remove deadly mines from the ground."

UNICEF is conducting an integrated mine-awareness education campaign which involves:

• Training teachers, social workers and volunteers in landmine-awareness skills;

• Dissemination of mine-awareness posters;

• Use of mobile theatre groups, radio broadcasts and other means of public education; and

• Distribution - at border crossing points and in their home communities - of information leaflets to returning refugees.

"Landmines are everywhere a scourge of innocents, and of children in particular," said Williams. "I hope the trip to Kosovo will make it clear that an urgent priority must be placed on demining and that concrete steps must be taken quickly to protect innocent children, women and others in the still-volatile province."

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