That means common areas such as water holes and places where firewood is gathered can be mined. In the province of Moxico alone, at least 52 people were killed by 133 land-mine explosions in the area this year. Other areas facing land mine problems include Afghanistan, Kosovo, Chechnya, Mozambique, Namibia and Botswana, Bernstein said. While multinational troops have, for the time being, defused much of the conflict in the Balkans, the region's problems are by no means solved. Witness the recent death of a U.S. serviceman, killed when his vehicle hit a land mine on a road supposedly cleared.
Land mines laid during the war remain a threat to civilians and peacekeepers alike.
The problem, said Steve Claborne, Mercy Corps' director of program operations for the Balkans, is that mine-clearing operations have been suspended for the winter. Although most were marked, rain and other weather conditions have caused some of them to shift, putting the civilian population once again in harm's way. Violence still mars much of the region, especially Kosovo, where ethnic tensions often lead to street fighting. People are still beaten and sometimes killed because they are a Serb or ethnic Albanian in the wrong place at the wrong time. It has not been sorted out.