AN international conference on landmines opens in the Mozambican capital on Monday. The five-day meeting is expected to bring together 800 delegates from the signatories of the 1997 Ottawa Treaty banning the production and marketing of mines. At least 134 countries signed the Ottawa Convention, but only 72, most those that have suffered the effects of landmines, have ratified it. The majority of the producers of the mines, including the United States, have not ratified the convention yet.
Mozambican foreign ministry officials said the UN-sponsored conference will examine ways of making the world free from the deadly devices in as short a period as 10 years.
This is the second time Mozambique has hosted an international debate on landmines, because of its experience as one of the world’s heavily mined countries, and the second most mined in southern Africa after Angola.
It is estimated that two million mines were planted in Mozambique during 16 year-civil war that ended in late 1992.