landmines

Millions of Children "Disappear" Due to Land Mines

Protection for Children Urged at 4th International NGO Conference on Land Mines

CONTACT:
Wendy Driscoll
CARE Mozambique Tel: 258-1-492064/5/6.

Erin Burns/Lisa Swenarski
CARE USA Tel: 404-681-2552, ext 117/206

February 25, Mozambique -- Millions of children are most at risk from the more than 100 million land mines buried worldwide, according to panelists and participants at the Fourth International Conference on Land Mines opening today in Maputo, Mozambique.

Graca Machel, wife of Mozambique's late president and specialist on the impact of land mines on children, said at today's conference that child victims, especially in isolated rural areas, die before they can be treated or even recorded as victims by government and aid agencies. "Millions of children around the world just disappear as the result of land mines," said Machel, a speaker at the conference.

Kathleen Allen, CARE demining consultant in Angola, said: "We can't just look at the impact on children at the time of injury because what happens affects kids over the long term as well. Children suffer the most and for the longest. That's why we need a ban on anti-personnel land mines."

Children who lose limbs to land mine explosions face potentially graver problems than adult victims. Rapid growth spurts mean that children may need two or three amputations after an injury and to be fitted with up to two prosthetics each year.

In Afghanistan an estimated 30 percent of land mine victims are children, while in some parts of Angola that figure is as high as 50 percent.

President Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique also addressed the packed conference on the opening day, along with Jody Williams, Coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines, and Graca Machel.

The Fourth International Conference on Land Mines brings together delegates from international humanitarian and human rights organizations around the world to press for a total ban on land mines.

The international relief and development organization CARE was also represented at the conference. CARE has demining programs in Angola and Cambodia. By identifying, marking and removing land mines, CARE helps reduce the number of deaths and injuries from land mines in these countries.