Landmines
Published by deviousdiva September 18th, 2006 in Legal Issues.Two more people were killed and another injured by landmines in Evros, Northern Greece last Sunday. 30 people have been killed and at least 10 injured in that area since 2003.
Greece signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 3 December 1997, ratified it on 25 September 2003, and the treaty entered into force on 1 March 2004.
As of 10 April 2006, 10,002 of the 24,751 antipersonnel mines had been cleared from the minefields on the Evros River bordering Turkey.
There is still a long way to go.
For more information and the situation of landmines in Greece, go here
JUST FOUND OUT ,ON YOUR BLOG
THINK THE JOURNALISTS AND TV PEOPLE
SHOULD BE BEATEN , WHEN THEY DONT REPORT
THIS KINDA OF SERIOUS HAPPENINGS .
I know a couple of soldiers were injured (I think one was killed?) last month in a massive mine clearing effort. The recent effort broke mine clearing records, apparently.From what I see (and hear), Greece is doing what it can to get these mines cleared - at the risk of many, many lives. It isn’t a quick process. Sure, I guess they could have more people on the team. But you gotta have people that are qualified to do this kind of thing as well. You can’t just have anyone out there trying to demine an area.
You are absolutely right Melusina, it is a slow process and Greece is making an effort to clear the mines. It’s just tragic that in the meantime people are being killed and injured.
It is a slow process for those who don’t mind to look around for new techniques. In some other parts of the world, folks figured out that the most common of the explosive devices are based upon Nitrogen, and there is some sort of a micro-organism that feeds on Nitrogen and is emmits some sort of phosphate light in the dark. It proved to be a good way of identifying landmines, you just spread the virus at day - I assume from the sky - and then wait for the cover of darkness, and by that time the landmines are flashy like neon signs in the middle of nowhere.
Unfortunately, these practices are undertaken by modernized armies. when I was in the engineering corps - the one responsible for planting and removing mines - we were taught that we were the last NATO army laying land mines by hand. By now, we must be the last NATO army removing land mines by hand…
petros that would be even funny ,,
if not so deadly. for everyone concerned.