It will take more than $317.5 million from the international community to clear landmines and unexploded ordinance in 29 countries, according to a United Nations report released Tuesday called Mine Action Projects 2007. The report includes 300 proposals from non-governmental organizations to handle five key issues regarding land mines: clearing and marking hazardous areas; mine risk education; victim assistance; destruction of stockpiled landmines; and advocacy for international agreements on landmines, such as Protocol V on Explosive Remnants of War of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, an international treaty that went into effect November 12. Protocol V includes provisions that will one day facilitate the rapid removal and destruction of explosive remnants of war, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in his message to launch the 2007 report. But Protocol V is aimed at conflicts that have yet to occur, while there remains an urgent need to handle the aftermath of conflicts that took place before it went into force. According to the report, over 590 cluster munitions strike locations had been identified, and over 35,000 cluster munitions bomblets had been cleared in Lebanon. In the last two months e, the cluster munitions had caused 124 injuries or deaths there. The assessors are still in the process of determining how many landmines and cluster munitions are in Lebanon after the recent month-long war between Israel and Lebanon s Hezbollah.
