Danger sign for landmines
Updated 17:20 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The goal of the Cartagena Summit on a Mine-free World, meeting in Colombia 29 November to 4 December, is to eradicate the suffering caused by anti-personnel mines once and for all.
Colombia has had the dubious distinction until recently of being the country with the most casualties from anti-personnel mines. It was overtaken by Afghanistan in 2009. Colombia alone counts 8,081 casualties of landmines since 1990, but it also has 6,285 survivors, people who have lost a limb. Landmines caused almost 5,200 casualties worldwide in 2008, one-third of them children. The 2009 Landmine Monitor Report points out that deaths from landmines are steadily decreasing, down from an average of 7,300 a year for the previous 10 years. Landmine ban groups are keen to get rid of the mines but they are also focusing more on helping survivors.
In Colombia, too, the number of casualties has been falling: 777 deaths in 2008, compared to 895 the previous year.
In Colombia, rebel groups such as Farc and the ELN, as well as paramilitary groups, have planted anti-personnel mines on an estimated 60 percent of the territory. Insurgents increasingly finance themselves through the drugs trade, reported Human Rights Watch in a section on Colombia in its World Report 2009, published in January. They have been invading peripheral regions in the south of the country on the border with Ecuador, ejecting the indigenous populations, and protecting their territories from army incursions by the simple means of sowing anti-personnel mines, many home-made and attractive to children.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Fifa, the Swiss-based international football federation, is fining Côte d’Ivoire CHF50,000 and enforcing several preventive measures before the next home match, at the end of a disciplinary investigation into a March 2009 accident that killed 22 people. Fifa has also donated CHF100,000 to the families of those who died.
The deaths occurred during a stampede outside the Félix Houphouët-Boigny Stadium in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire before the Fifa World Cup/CAF Africa Cup of Nations qualifier between Côte d’Ivoire and Malawi 29 March 2009. The game went ahead, with the home team beating Malawi 5-0.
A collapsing wall at Felix Houphouet-Boigny stadium in Abidjan injured more than 130 fans and killed 19 before a World Cup qualifier match Sunday 29 March. Officials decided to continue with the match between Ivory Coast and Malawi where Ivory Coast won 5-0. Ivory Coast’s President Laurent Gbagbo declared three days of national mourning and are investigating the cause of the accident. BBC
