Mauritania destroys its final supply of anti-personnel mines

In a symbolic celebration attended by the Mauritania defense minister and foreign ambassadors on Sunday, the Mauritanian army blasted some 5,000 mines considered to be the last stored amounts of anti personnel mines.

This step coincides with the Ottawa agreement which bans the deployment of these mines on which Mauritania had ratified.

The army in Mauritania is still searching for what is estimated between 50,000 and 100,000 mines dumped under the sands of the desert especially in the northern area adjoining western Sahara, according to UN estimates.

Worthy mentioning that the USA, Canada and other countries had been helping Mauritania in eliminating these inherited mines from what is known as the desert war which was raised when Mauritanian and Morocco shared the divided Western Sahara after the evacuation of the Spanish occupation in 1975.

News Agencies