Team:Edinburgh/mapxmlafganistan



Afganistan <![CDATA[Afghanistan remains one of the countries most contaminated by landmines and explosive remnants of war, mainly the result of the 1992–1996 internal armed conflict and the decade-long war of resistance that followed the Soviet invasion of 1979. The United States-led coalition’s intervention in late 2001 added considerable quantities of unexploded ordnance to the problem, including submunitions, and this was followed by further mine use by National Security Affairs Groups. The Afghanistan Landmine Impact Survey (ALIS), completed in 2005, found 2,368 communities and more than four million people affected by mines, and identified some 715km2 of suspected hazardous areas (SHAs).

Landmines continue to cause a high level of casualties, resulting in 608 people killed or injured in 2007, and still pose a formidable challenge to social and economic reconstruction, which is critical to the country’s political stabilization. Mine and ERW contamination is particularly concentrated in central and key food-producing eastern provinces, affecting towns and urban commercial areas as well as villages, farm and grazing land, and roads.

Landmine Monitor media analysis identified at least 61 additional casualties from 22 incidents (36 killed and 25 injured), including 38 civilians and 23 foreign soldiers from Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. ]]> <![CDATA[]]>