Mines and unexploded ordnance left over from the past nearly three decades of wars and civil strife kill or wound more than 60 people in war-torn Afghanistan monthly, said a statement of the European Commission received in Kabul Thursday.
"On average 62 Afghans are killed or injured every month by anti-personnel mines," the European Commission delegation to Afghanistan said in the statement.
Afghanistan is one of the heavily mined countries in the world. More than 12 million mines had been planted during nearly 30 years of war, foreign occupation and factional fighting and of these, 5 million mines have been defused or destroyed, according to officials.
"More than four million Afghans are living in one of the 2,374 mined communities and are struggling to cope with the legacy of Afghanistan's brutal war," Afghan foreign ministry said in a statement issued Wednesday.
The post-war Afghanistan, according to its foreign ministry, has destroyed more than 500,000 stockpiled anti-personnel mines in the last four years and is committed to destroy all its anti-personnel mines by 2013.
The EC has pledged another 600 million Euros (about 891.12 million U.S. dollars) to continue supporting Afghanistan reconstruction during the years 2007-2010, the EC statement said.
As a major contributor in the rebuilding of the post-Taliban Afghanistan, the European Commission pledged one billion Euros for the period 2002-2006 and of these, 80 percent has already been disbursed.
Source:Xinhua
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