Landmines litter Angola

2004-04-02 09:36

Liezel de Lange

Luanda - Six people died and the taxi was ripped to pieces when it tripped up a landmine on a road that has been in use for several months in the Huambo province.

Another three died a few days later when a truck, carrying food aid to former soldiers, drove over a mine in the neighbouring Bie province.

Hundreds of vehicles have driven over both roads over the past months, but as soon as heavy rains dislodge landmines or vehicles do not hold to the road, the danger returns ...

"It's a nightmare. Bad roads and landmines hamper our work enormously," says Fernando Arroyo of the United Nations office for humanitarian aid co-ordination in Huambo.

As soon as a landmine detonates on a road it has to be closed under international regulations for emergency aid organisations.

At least 140 000 people in Huambo are currently cut off from essential food and medical aid as a result of the problem. It could take several months before Halo Trust, a landmine disposal organisation, has cleared the area.

Minefields across Angola

Hundreds of thousands of landmines had been distributed among the four thousand known minefields across Angola, says Halo Trus chief Domingos Justino.

Eighteen Halo Trust teams are defusing minefields by hand, aided by four trained Alsatian sniffer dogs. Two more mechanical teams are working in areas where the soil is too tough for normal defusing.

They use the Chubby, a heavy vehicle equipped in South Africa with enormous cylinders to stamp out landmines. Chubbies are particularly useful in defusing Chinese anti-tank mines which are difficult to trace.

Justino points to a huge map on his office wall stuck full of drawing pins.

Red pins mark 'incidents'

Blue drawing pins indicate mine fields they have not yet penetrated, red pins mark "incidents" (where landmines have exploded), green pins are for areas already clean and yellow pins indicate where Halo Trust teams are currently working.

The map is dominated by blue pins.

"We defused 2 696 landmines in Huambo last year. If we are given more people and money, it would take at least five years to clear Huambo," Justino notes.

The problem is that nobody knows where the mines are buried.

"Everyone, but everyone appears to have buried landmines here. You'll find Portuguese mines from the sixties, Cuban mines from the seventies, South African mines from the eighties and Chinese mines scattered in between. Nobody kept records," says Arroyo.

He maintains most defence forces plant mines according to patterns. "You can start guessing where the rest are once you have found one, but in Angola landmines were left randomly.

"If the roads are closed and we know communities are desperate, we contact the kamikaze truck drivers. They will put their lives on the line to transport emergency supplies," says Arroyo.

- Media24 Africa