landmines

Angola's Battle Sites Strewn with Unexploded Bombs

by John Fleming, reporting for Reuters Inc.

CUITO CUANAVALE, Angola, Sept 11 (Reuter) -- The sound of beating drum beckons women and children washing at the foot of a bombed-out bridge on Angola's southern Cuito river. The sound, vibrating down the river valley near this remote town, is calling people to a class on the dangers of landmines and unexploded bombs strewn everywhere.

Cuito Cuanavale, in the dry southeastern corner of Angola, was the site of one of the fiercest military battles on the African continent. In 1988 Angola's UNITA movement, backed by South African forces, took on a combined force of the Angolan army and Cuban troops near the town. The ground and air battles raged for weeks.

"Those days were just horrible," said Manuel Katango, a civilian from the town. "Every morning at daylight the South African jets would scream over and drop their bombs and the artillery shells on the town. We thought it would never end."

Nine years after the battle and nearly three years into a 1994 peace plan between UNITA and the ruling MPLA government to end the 20-year civil war, hundreds of thousands of landmines and unexploded weapons carpet the countryside.

Education to Save a Life

The relief agency CARE International is overseeing an education programme for Cuito Cuanavale's people on the dangers of mines, how to plot their location and destroy them.

"Cuito Cuanavale is one of the most heavily mined areas in Angola," said Alan Calton, a demolition expert formerly with the British army, who is working on the CARE project.

There are an estimated 10 million landmines in Angola, one the most heavily mined countries in the world. Britain's Princess Diana, who was killed in a car crash on August 31, visited the country earlier this year to highlight a campaignto ban anti-personnel mines.

Calton, who has just finished identifying and marking a minefield 26 km (16 miles) long and 500 metres (550 yards) wide near the town, says unexploded weapons such as hand grenades, bombs and rockets are the biggest threat in the area.

"People tend to know the general area where the landmines are and their dangers," said Calton. "But the children especially do not think the unexploded ordinances are dangerous. "Most of them have grown up seeing their dads wearing RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) strapped to their backs," said Calton. "They go out in the high grass and find one and think it is okay to play with it. Too often it explodes in their hands."

Braving Danger

About 180 km (110 miles) west of Cuito Cuanavale is the town of Menongue, used as a logistical base by the Angolans and Cubans. On the edge of the city are a number of munition dumps filled with an assortment of explosive devices.

In the Catholic Mission of Marcolusa the Cubans used the classrooms to store their weapons, but South African forces later bombed the area, leaving behind tens of thousands of bombs.

"This is extremely dangerous work clearing this munitions dump," said John Halford, who works with the project. He is a former combat engineer with the British army. Halford walks among mountains of huge Soviet-made 240 mm mortar bombs, white phosphorous grenades, RPGs and sophisticated shoulder fired Surface to Air Missiles.

Last year a farmer burning his field set off a munitions dump close to Menongue, injuring several people. "The fire got into the rockets among other things," said Halford. "A lot of the rockets relaunched and started raining down on Menongue. People here thought the war had started again, they were fleeing the town."

The task to demine and clear the area of unexploded weapons in the area is enormous. "I know these people can save lives," says 23-year-old Antonio Canyanga, referring to Care's deminers.

Motioning to his missing lower legs, he explains: "I did this running through a minefield. If that field had been marked I would still have my leg today."