UN: urges support for projects to clear landmines

Security Council urges support for projects to clear landmines

The Security Council today urged United Nations Member States to support projects to clear landmines and other unexploded ordnance from countries emerging from armed conflicts and to help rehabilitate landmine victims.

In a statement read by the Council President for November, Ambassador Ismael Abraão Gasper Martins of Angola, the Council urged countries to provide "adequate and sustained" financial assistance to support mine clearing and to alleviate the suffering of populations affected by mines and unexploded ordnance.

Where possible, countries should donate further to the Voluntary Trust Fund for Assistance in Mine Action, the statement said.

"The Security Council encourages governments whose countries are affected by the presence of landmines and unexploded ordnance to include a mine action impact assessment in all development planning," the statement said.

The Council also drew attention to the need to ensure the socio-economic, physical and psychosocial reintegration of landmine survivors.

Refugees and internally displaced people needed to be repatriated in orderly fashion, mined land had to be restored to productive use and people and goods should be able to move about without such risks, the statement said.

The Council called on Secretary-General Kofi Annan to provide information on the scope and humanitarian impact of the mine and unexploded ordnance problem by submitting country-specific reports.

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