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Colombia aims to rid country of landmines by 2021 - govt

by Anastasia Moloney | @anastasiabogota | Thomson Reuters Foundation
Tuesday, 14 February 2017 18:04 GMT

In 2015, the government and FARC rebels agreed to work together to remove landmines during peace talks in Cuba

By Anastasia Moloney

BOGOTA, Feb 14 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Colombia, one of the most mined countries in the world, aims to remove all landmines and other explosives by 2021 after the government and FARC rebels signed a peace deal last year, a top government official has said.

Colombia's left-wing guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), planted thousands of landmines across swathes of the country during its five-decade war against the government.

"Forty percent of the areas that were covered in landmines for the past 25 years are now being cleared to reach the goal of having a Colombia free of anti-personnel mines by 2021," Rafael Pardo, the government's post-conflict commissioner, told local media on Monday.

After Afghanistan, Colombia has the second highest number of landmine casualties, with more than 11,500 people killed or injured by landmines since 1990, government figures show.

The FARC rebels planted homemade mines in mostly rural areas, using empty glass bottles of rum, coffee and tuna cans, and plastic tubes filled with sulphuric acid.

In 2015, the government and FARC rebels agreed to work together to remove landmines during peace talks in Cuba.

Under the December peace accord, around 6,300 FARC fighters have so far moved to designated areas across Colombia where they will hand in their weapons over the next six months.

The government hopes that nearly 1,000 former FARC combatants will work to identify and clear mines, Pardo said.

With the FARC moving away from their former strongholds, it is now safer for government military demining teams, along with local and international demining groups, to work in new areas.

Colombia's president, Juan Manuel Santos, has said clearing landmines is a key challenge facing the nation as it emerges from decades of war and is crucial for rural development.

Experts say Colombia's mountainous and jungle terrain make mine clearance difficult, and it will take Colombia at least a decade to rid the country of all its landmines.

International donors, including the United States and Norway, have so far contributed nearly $112 million for landmine clearance in Colombia.

(Reporting by Anastasia Moloney @anastasiabogota, Editing by Katie Nguyen. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit http://news.trust.org)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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