{"id":37420,"date":"2023-04-03T11:38:05","date_gmt":"2023-04-03T15:38:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opanlcom-cp6.wordpresstemporal.com\/JID\/?p=37420"},"modified":"2023-04-03T11:38:08","modified_gmt":"2023-04-03T15:38:08","slug":"4-de-abril-dia-internacional-de-concienciacion-sobre-las-minas-y-asistencia-en-la-accion-contra-las-minas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jid.org\/en\/4-de-abril-dia-internacional-de-concienciacion-sobre-las-minas-y-asistencia-en-la-accion-contra-las-minas\/","title":{"rendered":"April 4, International Day for Mine Awareness and Mine Action Assistance."},"content":{"rendered":"

The Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, also known as the Ottawa Convention, was signed in 1997. Since then, it has been adopted by more than 160 countries as part of efforts of the international community to reduce the remaining damage to populations in post-armed conflict areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, after 20 years of constant decline, the number of mine victims in the world has increased again since 2017, due to the growth of their use in internal conflicts, mainly in Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iraq and Ukraine, as well as the large number of active improvised devices in Colombia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colombia has been plagued by internal conflict since the 1960s and a byproduct of these conflicts is the high incidence of antipersonnel mines, improvised explosive devices, and failed munitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On December 3, 1997, Colombia signed the Ottawa Convention, which was ratified on September 6, 2000 and came into force on March 1, 2001. at the national level, mainly in the fields where peasant communities, Afro-descendants and natives. The MAPs do not distinguish men, women, children, combatants or civilians, which constitutes a serious violation of human rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next step was the creation of the Intersectoral Action Commission against Antipersonnel Mines and the Antipersonnel Mines Observatory. Thus, Colombia began to develop a national, regional and local system responsible for the basic tasks of the Comprehensive Action against Antipersonnel Mines: humanitarian demining; MAP risk education; assistance and rehabilitation of victims; and advocacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The international community, the United Nations, the Organization of American States (OAS) and non-governmental organizations were involved in this work, forming a Comprehensive Action Program against Antipersonnel Mines in Colombia. In 2006, the first Demining Company began to be formed and organized by the Colombian National Army, which received training directly from military personnel of the Inter-American Defense Board (IADB) in support of the OAS. That year, the Group of Inter-American Monitors of the Assistance Mission of the Organization of American States to the National Demining Plan in Colombia (GMI-CO) was created, under the coordination of the IADB. Subsequently, in 2015, the Group of Inter-American Technical Advisors in Colombia (GATI-CO) was created, also under the coordination of the IADB.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first years of work, relevant actions were implemented such as the cleaning of military bases protected with these devices, the destruction of arsenals, the development of capabilities for Humanitarian Demining (material, organization, trained personnel and doctrine), the beginning of Education in Mine Risk and care and rehabilitation of victims. In 2009, the Colombian government asked the OAS to expand the agreement to include the participation of national and international non-governmental civil organizations in humanitarian demining in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until 2016, Colombia was the 2nd country in the world in the number of victims of MAP and Explosive Remnants of War (EGW), after Afghanistan, and the 1st in number of victims of the Public Force. Currently, Colombia is among the six countries in the world in the number of victims in general, and among the three countries in the number of victims of the Public Force. From 1990 until the deadline of February 28, 2023, 12,322 MAP and REG victims were recorded in Colombia, of which 81% were injured and 19% died. The 59% are security forces and the 41% are civilians, the 89% are adults, 1,270 children and 663 women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in Colombia there are an average of 419,000 people who need Humanitarian Assistance and live in areas contaminated by MAP or Unexploded Used Ordnance (UXO).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, although there is a decrease in the number of accidents of this type, the number of victims in general and also the proportion of civilian victims, compared to security force victims, has increased since 2016, as a consequence of new disputes territorial disputes between armed groups, which increase the contamination of several areas with MAP and REG. Another worrying fact is that, according to the National Authority of Colombia, although indigenous and Afro-Colombian populations represent close to 11.1% of the Colombian population, they represented 28.5% of the total victims of MAP and REG in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The advances in Colombia in the cleaning of areas contaminated by MAP and REG are relevant: from 2004 to 2022 almost 12 million square meters were cleaned, more than 3,000 MAP, almost 400 Improvised Explosive Devices and more than 1,000 REG were destroyed. By 2022, Colombia had managed to declare 254 municipalities free of suspicions of MAP and GER, but there were still another 131 to intervene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On December 8, 2005, the United Nations General Assembly, through Resolution 60\/97, declared that "Each year, April 4 shall be proclaimed and observed as the International Mine Awareness and Assistance Day." Mine Action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United Nations thus reaffirmed its concern about this serious humanitarian problem, about the lack of development caused by the presence of MAP and GER, and about the terrible social and economic consequences for the affected populations. In addition to the threats that these stealthy and highly lethal devices bring to the safety, health and life of the civilian population and personnel participating in humanitarian programs and operations implemented to clean areas contaminated by MAP and REG.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the words of a MAP survivor, member of the Association of Landmine Survivors Fighting for Dignity and Peace (Asodigpaz-Colombia), on the International Day of Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action: \u00abIt is important, because it is the day when all antipersonnel mine survivors raise their voices in rejection of antipersonnel mines, to change the mentality of the world, it is a day that shows that we exist, that we are there, but also that others did not survive. and that we must remember, so that the armed actors also remember that mines are indiscriminate weapons, which can have children or peasants as victims.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, also known as the Ottawa Convention, was signed in 1997. Since then, it has been adopted by more than 160 countries as part of efforts of the international community to reduce the remaining damage to [\u2026]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":37421,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"destacado":[],"class_list":["post-37420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-noticias"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37420"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37426,"href":"https:\/\/jid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37420\/revisions\/37426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37420"},{"taxonomy":"destacado","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/destacado?post=37420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}