23 landmines uncovered near Namtu temple
Twenty-three landmines have been discovered, planted
near the temple compound where a blast occurred on Monday, causing serious injury to eight novice monks.
“After the bomb blast that wounded eight
novice monks, the following day local authorities and community leaders went to
the area and uncovered more than twenty mines near the temple,” Nang Kham Phong,
a local aid worker in Namtu, told Shan
Herald on Thursday.
“The mines were buried east of Zeya
Sukha Temple in Mong Yen Tract, Namtu Township,” said Nang Kham Phong. “They
have now been moved to the local military office.”
Many years ago, the Burma military
set up positions in this village. When they withdrew from the area the
villagers reclaimed their lands.
According to an official from the local
administration, authorities suspect there could be many more devices planted in
and around Mong Yen. He said that that the landmines may have been planted in a line, but
otherwise they had no idea how to locate them. He said that the local
administration could not be the ones to take responsibility for this.
Burma was ranked third most dangerous
country in the world for landmines in 2014 behind only Colombia and
Afghanistan, according to the Landmine and
Cluster Munition Monitor, a research and monitoring arm of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL).
A report from the Landmine and Cluster
Munition Monitor published in November 2016 reads: “In September 2016, Deputy Minister of Defense
Maj-Gen Myint Nwe informed the Myanmar parliament that the army continues to
use landmines in internal armed conflict. At
the same session, a Member of Parliament from Shan State stated that ‘it can’t
be denied that non-state armed groups are also using landmines…particularly
since 2012.’”
Landmine explosions are
regularly reported across Shan State. On July 7, 2015, Shan Herald
reported that a 70-year-old woman was killed after stepping on a landmine near a
Burmese military compound in northern Shan State’s Hsenwi Township.
Another case occurred in northern Shan State’s Hsipaw Township on July 22 last year, when a villager
and his eight-year-old daughter were seriously
injured
by a landmine explosion when they went into a forest to cut firewood.
According to an ICBL
report in November 2015, 396 people had been killed, 3,145 injured, and 204
affected in an unknown extent by landmines in Burma since 1999. However, the
report noted that the real figure could be much higher.
By Shan Herald Agency for
News (SHAN)
Tags: General, News
