Sri Lanka 's landmines are exacting an increasing civilian toll

After nearly 25 years of fighting it is unclear exactly how many landmines are now scattered across the Sri Lankan countryside or
where they lie.

Estimates vary between half-a-million and a million-and-a-half, and since fighting intensified in August these mines have been joined by scores of unexploded bombs, rockets, grenades and shells.

These legacies of conflict are known collectively as ERW - the explosive remnants of war.

Last week, near Batticaloa, seven people, including four children, were seriously injured by some of this ERW when an 81mm mortar round one of the children was playing with exploded.

The wounded were not combatants, nor members of any army.

A Imthiaz Ismail, the head of the local mine clearance group at the Milinda Moragoda Institute (MMI), said: "With mines, long after the war is over, civilians are being crippled and killed by them and deprived of their ability to lead a normal life."



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The MMI works as part of a Sri Lankan and international effort to clear the island of mines that began after a ceasefire was declared in 2002, and even though that ceasefire has been shattered by months of fighting, the mine clearers are still working.

Operating under the umbrella of Sri Lanka's National Steering Committee for Mine Action, mine clearance groups from a variety of countries are working both in government areas and those under the control of the Tamil Tigers.

MMI has been able to transcend the conflict's divisions thanks to its policy of recruiting mine-clearers from every ethnicity, religion and community.

"With de-miners from different areas and groups working together," said M Barun, a Muslim from Vavuniya, a mainly Tamil town in the north, currently controlled by the government.

He has a two-metre-wide lane to clear along what is called a "base line" extending into the suspected area, off which one-metre-wide "start lanes" will then be excavated, extending from the edge of the minefield right into its heart.


"It can be dangerous," said WDMG Guneratne, a Sinhalese Buddhist from Kurunegala in the centre of the country who works alongside Wigeyaratnam. "But we are properly trained to deal with any situation, so we're quite confident."


The two mine-clearers come from opposite sides in the ethnic conflict that has torn Sri Lanka apart.


Imthiaz Ismail, the head of the MMI, said: "We used to use mine boots. They're like a big clog with wedges, so if you step on a mine it'll just bruise you. But these are really for military use only, so we decided against them in the end."



Once a mine is located, specialists then come and remove it.


Aubrey Sutherland of Norwegian People's Aid, an international group also working under the auspices of the National Steering Committee, said: "What you do is remove the 'booster', or detonator from the mine, and then we destroy them both separately, usually by burning them."


"It takes about five minutes to burn a mine, while the detonators you can throw on a hot fire and they just pop. Of course, this is all done in a controlled environment and in front of witnesses, so that everyone knows the mines really have been destroyed, not just taken somewhere else and used again."

"But it's not really just about how many mines you take out of the ground. It's about releasing the land that you've cleared back into use."

This is a point about which all the mine clearers agree - that what they are doing goes far beyond disposing of the devices themselves.

Ismail said: "To begin with, we'd clear an area of mines but then no one would return, because it wasn't an area people wanted to go back to. If there are no hospitals, schools, jobs in an area, people will not return.

"Now, before we start clearing, we do a survey of all the people who lived there, asking them if they would go back or not. Clearance becomes part of overall development plans."




Family vibe

Yet now, after the failure of recent peace talks, the mine-clearers are working in the centre of a renewed conflict.

However, Sutherland said: "This hasn't really impacted on morale. On the contrary, so long as people keep up their commitment to the de-mining, it stops them getting sucked into the conflict. We give them a job and a wage and that helps them stay out of it."

Ismail said: "There are allegations that both sides have started laying mines again, but nothing has been proved. I think there is a glimmer of hope in that both sides still say they are committed to the de-mining process."

So, every morning, the de-miners continue to head out for the jungles and paddy fields, armed with their rakes and protective clothing.

"We spend more time with the team than with our own families," said TK Krishnan, a Hindu Tamil. "We are like one big family."