Team:Edinburgh/mapxmlgbissau



Guinea Bissau <![CDATA[As a result of armed conflicts dating back to 1963, Guinea-Bissau is contaminated by landmines (both antipersonnel and antivehicle) and explosive remnants of war (ERW). The capital, Bissau, is said to have been cleared of mines, but it remains contaminated by large quantities of ERW, in particular at Paiol de Bra, an ammunition storage area in Bissau that was bombed during internal armed conflict. As many as 20 separate warehouses exploded during the bombardment. According to Landmine Action, the ERW contamination of Guinea-Bissau “is not severe, in the sense that it requires an emergency response but, when the extent of the contamination and its impact is appraised, the country would appear to receive relatively scant funding and attention in relation to certain other ERW affected regions of the world.”

There were at least eight new mine/ERW casualties in five incidents in 2007, including one person killed, six injured, and one unknown.

Landmine Action reported that a local farmer in Xime in Bafata region was blinded after accidentally detonating a grenade in July 2007. CAAMI recorded the remaining seven casualties (one person killed, five injured, and one unknown). Five casualties were boys, one was military, and one was a LUTCAM deminer who suffered eye injuries. This is the first clearance casualty since the start of clearance operations in 1999. The five child casualties occurred due to ERW and were recorded as caused by tampering with devices while herding. None of the civilian casualties occurred in marked areas, and they had not received mine/ERW risk education (RE).

The 2007 casualty rate is a significant decrease compared to at least 43 casualties in 2006 (18 killed, 25 injured). However, in 2006 one incident caused 28 casualties when a bus drove over an antivehicle mine. It is possible that casualties go unreported due to the relative inaccessibility of the country, poor communications infrastructure, and the lack of a functioning health system.

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