Lanka’s North cleared of 200,000 land mines

Sri Lanka’s former civil war zone has been cleared of 200,000 land mines, world’s largest demining agency said today, as it aims at getting the country rid of the deadly explosives by 2020. 

“We aim to completely rid the country of landlines by the year 2020,” said Damien O’Brien, chief of Halo Trust, said in Jaggna. 

Some of other international NGOs had stopped work due to lack of funding, O’Brien said, adding that 90 per cent of the lands required for resettlement has been cleared of land mines. Only the forest areas and paddy fields remain to be cleared. 

Despite Sri Lanka not signing the international convention on land mines, Halo Trust’s work was not hampered, the Trust said, which is the world’s oldest and largest humanitarian land mine clearance agency which receive fundings from the UK, Japan and the US which enable it to carry on the demining work in Sri Lanka. 

The Tamil Tigers are said to have buried land mines and explosives against international norms in the country’s north. (PTI)