CAIRO: The Executive Secretariat for demining of the Egyptian Ministry of International Cooperation completed the first phase of “cleansing and demining” the area of El Alamein, on Egypt's North Coast. The area is estimated at about 33,000 acres and includes 3,500 acres that could be residential areas and was supposed to be received by the Ministry of Housing, but the ministry apologized under the pretext of the existence of other projects and that the remaining area would be allocated for agriculture upon the completion of demining efforts. Abdel Rahman Moussa, Secretary General of the Association of Albaco International, on International Day for Mine Awareness, said that among the objectives of the society for establishing security, peace and stability of societies, the efforts of the Ministry of International Cooperation through the expansion of landmine-risk education and the delivery of more than 31,000 acres, “endeavors to clean up the northern coast of mines and we hope that the process would be done until the end with the same seriousness.” In the same context, Fathy el-Shazly, Chairman of the Executive Secretariat for Mine Clearance, said that the international community does not realize that there is a challenge with mines and an American study confirms that “until today's reporting has nothing to do and the responsibility of cleansing should be upon the belligerents,” referring to the countries that used the desert to place thousands of mines during World War II. He pointed out that the countries that caused the existence of these mines “have provided few aid before the start of the current program and the first time the problem was raised was in the late 1990s after civilians began returning to their towns and to the surprise of the world, hundreds lost body parts or died because of the remaining mines.” At the end of the 1990s, Egypt asked the United Nations to assess the risk and Egypt established the anti-mine service followed by the Convention on the Prohibition of Mines as wells as a mission to Egypt, which agreed that the problem is a fact, not a problem at the individual level, but on the level of development. The UN then recommended the establishment of a civilian entity to connect with the international community and a local group of donors and ambassadors of good will and to implement a fund. To date, the Egyptian Prime Minister's office has formed a committee of ministers chaired by the Minister of International Cooperation to oversee the mine clearance in Egypt. There are a number of nations, including some European countries that didn’t join the project of boycotting mines. These same countries were resistant to the Convention “OTTOWA” and Egypt's attempts to impose the conventions explosive offenses, claiming that Egypt is not a signatory on mines. Shazly said that Egypt has national plans for the development of the northern coast and has been working jointly between the Ministry of Planning and Trust Fund, which was approved by the Council of Ministers in 2005. “The sands of the northwest coast are home to approximately 17.5 million landmines and the number of landmines in the Sinai and the eastern desert is roughly 5.5 million,” according to a statement published by the ministry. She also estimated the number of the victims of landmines in Egypt to be about 900, disabled and wounded. BM
