Albania cleared of land mines, unexploded ordnance

TIRANA, Oct 10 – Last week Albania declared it was free of land mines and unexploded ordnance.
“That is great news for northeastern Albanians who had to cope with the consequences of the war mines and now get their land back,” Deputy Defense Minister Petrit Karabina said at a regional workshop of Southeastern European countries and the Caucasus held in the Albanian capital, Tirana .
A total of 34 Albanians, a third of them children, have been killed by mines and unexploded ordnance over the past decade, and 238 injured.
Many of the explosives were laid inside Albanian territory by neighboring Serbia during the 1998-99 war in Kosovo and some during the 2001 insurgency in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Others were planted by weapons smugglers.
More than 21 million Euros (about $31 million) were given by the United States, European Union, United Nations, international organizations, other countries and Albania itself to find and clear about 12,500 anti-personnel mines and unexploded ordnance from some 15.25 sq. kilometers and also help the tiny Balkan country destroy 1.6 million mines during the last decade.
“Albania was the `first State Party with a medium sized challenge” to get rid of them, said Kerry Brinkert of the Geneva-based Mine Ban Convention Implementation Support Unit.
The regional workshop in Tirana is analyzing the progress and challenges that remain in Southeastern European countries ahead of the Cartagena, Colombia, summit on prohibition and destruction of anti-personnel mines starting Nov. 30.
The Cartagena summit is the second to be held on the Mine Ban Convention that is ratified or acceded to by 156 states. Among them, 11 countries with small challenges have completed their mine clearance obligations while 53 countries have reported suspected mined areas.
International campaigners urged Bosnia and Croatia to step up efforts to rid their territories of land mines, which have killed hundreds of people in the two countries over the past 13 years.
“There is much more work to be done in Bosnia and Croatia and their governments should really be focusing on how to combine the international assistance with their efforts,” said Kerry Brinkert, head of the Geneva-based Mine Ban Convention Implementation Support Unit.
He said Bosnia was a more serious case than Croatia, as it suffered greater funding problems.
Both Balkan countries have hundreds of square kilometers contaminated with anti-personnel mines dating from the wars that followed the collapse of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
Although 2,500 sq. kilometers have been cleared in Bosnia since 1999, an estimated 1,700 sq. kilometers remain contaminated. Mines have claimed 464 lives in the country since 1996.
In Croatia, where land mines have killed 68 people since 1999, about 950 sq. kilometers remain uncleared.
“At this stage it is very important that governments get really serious in finding the money and the will to complete the clearance,” said Tamar Gabelnick.
Gabelnick is Treaty Implementation director at the International Campaign to Ban Land mines, Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 1997.
“Bosnia and Croatia suffer from heavy contamination, but ten years after joining the treaty they still do not know where all the mined areas are,” Gabelnick said. “With lives depending on the rapid clearance of these areas, there is no time to lose.” “All the mine-affected governments and the international community should also pay higher attention to the victims’ assistance programs. We must not forget people who have suffered from mine explosions should also be fully integrated into the normal life.”
Gabelnick and Brinkert were in Albania for the opening of a regional meeting on land mines.