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Since the Scotland-based HALO Trust started work in Afghanistan in 1988 and Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) cleared its first mine in Cambodia in 1992, the two NGOs have cleared and destroyed several million landmines and explosive weapons from conflict zones around the world. Their total haul in Myanmar? Zero.
“It is very frustrating,” says Henry Leach, HALO Trust representative in Yangon. “We are the biggest operator in the world but have not cleared a single mine in Myanmar in three years of being here.”
Aksel Steen-Nilsen, NPA program manager, says he is packing his bags and heading to Cambodia where there is de-mining work still to do. However, NPA will remain in Myanmar, working on all sides in continuing efforts to unblock an impasse built on decades of enmity and distrust.
In the meantime, mines keep maiming and killing. No one knows for sure how many because there is no compilation of data by the warring parties. The NPA estimates 300 to 500 people, many of them civilians and children, are blown up each year. The southeast is perhaps the most mine-dense region in the world...
