Two million landmines buried in Sudan

From Sudan Radio Service, 05 April 2009 (Khartoum)

The National Centre for De-mining says that there are over two million landmines still buried in different parts of Sudan.

The announcement came as Sudan marked International Mine Awareness Day on Saturday, under the theme “Towards a Landmine-Free Sudan”.

In an interview with Sudan Radio Service on Saturday in Khartoum, the deputy director of the National De-mining Centre, Dr. Ahmed al-Badawi, said that lack of funding is a major problem facing the de-mining authorities in Sudan.

[Dr. Ahmed al-Badawi]:”There are approximately two million landmines buried in Sudan. There are many geographical and natural challenges facing de-miners and the de-mining process is very expensive, it needs a lot of funding. The biggest problem facing us is to get the funds for de-mining. We hope that the Government of National Unity will work and allocate major funding from its budget for fighting this sickness which is called landmines.”

According to Dr. al-Badawi, more than 20 states are affected by landmines. He said the most affected areas are the Equatorial states, Upper Nile, Bahr el-Ghazal, South and West Kordofan, Red Sea, Kassala, Blue Nile and Gedaref.”