An estimated 22,000 people are killed or maimed by landmines every year. Almost all of the victims are civilians. Conflict diamonds' are gems mined or traded by rebel groups seeking funds to buy weapons. Under pressure from many quarters, including LWR and other humanitarian groups, the World Diamond Congress recently adopted measures to ensure that diamonds come only from legitimate sources. LWR has taken a position on the 'conflict diamond' issue especially because of its work in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso and Angola where long-running conflicts and related trading are fueled in part by diamond sales.
American consumers provide another link.
They buy 65 percent of the diamonds sold internationally. The website bulletin notes that money we pay for diamonds here might end up paying for guns in Africa. A team of parishioners young and old at Salem Lutheran Church in Jacobus, Penn., astonished themselves September 16 by assembling quilts at the rate of one every six minutes. Lutheran World Relief is helping vulnerable groups in North Korea, flood survivors in northern India and people working on long-term rehabilitation after last December's floods and mudslides in Venezuela. North Korea, hit last month by the worst typhoon in 30 years, is facing a bleak winter despite recent openings to South Korea and other nations.