Addis Ababa, May 14, 2008 (Addis Ababa) - The British non-governmental organization, Cleared Ground Demining, is working against the clock: it says someone is killed or injured by an exploding mine every 30 minutes. According to Washington File dispatched from US Embassy in Addis Ababa it has been awarded a 244,000 USD State Department grant to help Guinea-Bissau destroy stockpiled munitions that no longer are needed.
Another NGO based in the United Kingdom, the Mines Advisory Group, will receive 271,800 USD in State Department aid for technical support to destroy small arms and light weapons in the Horn of Africa and Africa’s Great Lakes region.
The department’s Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement is distributing 4.4 million USD in fiscal year 2008 grants to 32 organizations around the world to destroy conventional weapons, mines and a variety of munitions and to help permanently injured victims.
The grants also will pay for two film documentaries to highlight the problem of indiscriminate and illicit use of conventional weapons.
The grant level reflects the determination of the United States to cut the annual casualty rate from mines and explosive materials left behind. The United States estimates that there were 5,751 reported casualties in 2006.
Dennis Barlow, director of Virginia’s James Madison University’s Mine Action Information Center, said the State Department is using its funds in “creative and imaginative ways.”
Barlow said exposing school-age children to actors who have been injured will educate the students about the dangers from unexploded weapons. It also will help erase the stigma in the society at large that is often associated with disabilities. Audiences will see that victims can “still be engaged in society,” he said.
Barlow said his center will use another 155,000 USD grant to collect information about the volatility of weapons as their age. Old munitions will be tested under laboratory conditions, and the lessons learned will help countries set priorities for areas that need to be cleared of land mines.
The State Department has been awarding grants at a steady rate, although funding may decrease as the problem of unexploded munitions is tackled successfully, he said.
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