Mines reap bloody harvest
2004-11-29 08:45
Cairo - More than 20 million landmines lurk beneath the shifting sands of Egypt's Western Desert, reaping a slow, bloody harvest and keeping waste vast tracts of land ripe for cultivation or development as tourist zones.
In what the Egyptian press calls the "Gardens of the Devil", the mines planted by the British have killed about 790 people and wounded or crippled 7 500 in the 60 years since World War II, according to official figures.
On Sunday, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki opened a week-long "summit for a world without mines" in Nairobi, appealing for all countries to join the 1997 Ottawa Convention and work to clear the world of the weapons which kill or maim a person every 22 minutes somewhere in the world, on average.
Since 1997, 143 countries, including Egypt, have ratified the convention which bans the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of anti-personnel mines, and demands the de-mining of mined regions within 10 years.
Official estimates say between 18 and 20 million mines were planted during World War II by the British forces of General Montgomery around El Alamein to slow down the advance of German troops led by "Desert Fox" General Rommel.
The Egyptian army has eliminated some three million mines at its own expense.
But according to former international cooperation minister Ahmed El-Darsh, another 14 million mines lie buried around El Alamein, another four million to the west between Sidi Barrani and Sallum by the Libyan frontier, and two million near Ras el-Hekma and Marsa Matruh.
The former minister deplores the fact that Egypt has not been able to get international help to deal with the problem. He wants to set up a body to clear up the Western Desert and develop the northern coast on the Mediterranean.
Darsh estimates that it costs $1 000 to eliminate a single mine, compared with just $10 to plant one.
$1 to plant, $1000 to remove
Cairo believes the countries responsible for laying the minefields - Britain, Germany and Italy - should pick up the cost of de-mining, but domestic legislation in these countries rules that out.
Egypt has tried in vain to get these countries to finance clearing the mines and compensate it for the lost use of the territory for six decades, which the local press estimates at $50bn.
Darsh says the usual response to the request has been that the landmines were planted "to defend Egypt from the (German and Italian) fascist threat".
According to the authorities, the already-cleared zone, in which barely 450 000 people live, could accommodate several hundred thousands more Egyptians in the next 20 years as the Nile valley becomes increasing crowded.
The population Egypt, now some 72 million, is expected to reach 100 million in the next 25 years.
The authority for land development estimates that about one million hectares would be cultivated between Alexandria and Sallum once the area has been cleared of mines.
- AFP