Feature: 3 decades after war, landmines continue to kill in Zimbabwe

Philimon Sibanda who lives at Zimbabwe's south-eastern border with Mozambique tells a harrowing tale of how he lost a leg in an anti-personnel mine explosion while herding cattle in the forest back in 1998.

"I just heard a huge explosion, a big boom. I didn't know what had happened. I tried to run and then I sat down. I turned a bit and my leg was gone forever. I started crying, but who could hear me. I was all alone," Sibanda told International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) officials who had visited the area.

In a short video film called "Living on the Edge --Zimbabwe's Communities and Anti-personnel Mines" produced by ICRC, fellow villager Hlengani Mudzikiti told a similar story chronicling how he also lost a leg while herding cattle in the minefield.

Mudzikiti said he used to evade the mines by stepping where the cattle had already stepped, but that time luck was not on his side.

The two are among hundreds of people who have lost life and limb after stepping on anti-personnel mines planted by the white minority regime along the borders in the then Rhodesia during the armed struggle in a futile bid to stop liberation fighters from entering the country from Mozambique and Zambia.

The country had six minefields covering an estimated 2,700km along the two borders, the longest being the Musengezi-Rwenya minefield in Mashonaland Central Province, which was 335km long, followed by the 220 km long Victoria Falls-Mlibizi field.

Landmines and other explosive remnants of the war remain dangerous to the border-lying communities, with about 1,650 people killed and many others injured, together with scores of livestock since independence in 1980.

At least 35 cattle and 250 wild animals were also killed during the just ending rainy season.

Sibanda and Mudzikiti's village lies on the verge of a 53 km stretch between Sango Border Post and Crooks Corner towards the convergence of the borders of Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa.

The ICRC teamed up with the army's Zimbabwe Mine Action Center (ZIMAC) in 2012 to improve existing mine clearance skills and capacity to enable the country to meet its international obligations to search for, clear and destroy anti-personnel mines.

As at Oct. 31 2015, 21,486 mines had been removed from the area between Sango Border Post and Crooks Corner.

The intention is to eventually reclaim the land and hand it over to local communities so that they can engage in economic activities there, including cropping, settlements and grazing.

This, however, is a far-cry from the estimated 3 million mines that still infest the border areas.

ICRC estimates that at the current pace of clearing, it may take up to 30 years to rid the country of what ICRC head of regional delegation Thomas Merkelbach said was a "terrifying legacy of human ingenuity".

"The land that is eventually released by ZIMAC deminers belongs to someone -- they are our true beneficiaries. 162 countries, including Zimbabwe, agree that the communities should not live isolated and deprived of the resources in their communities as a result of landmines," Merkelbach said.

Merkelbach, who was speaking during a handover ceremony of demining equipment to ZIMAC, said the ultimate goal was for Zimbabwe to meet the universally accepted deadline of 2025 for countries to have completed demining.

ICRC Weapon Contamination Delegate Paramdeep Mtharu said the ICRC "looked forward to the day when communities can safely build their homes in all the land once captive to landmines that has been cleared and certified for release by ZIMAC".

ZIMAC director Mkhulili Ncube said as of January this year, 62 million square meters remained uncleared.

Defense Minister Sidney Sekeramayi, who received the demining equipment, said Zimbabwe was expected to provide clear information on the remaining mine problem to the Ottawa Convention on the Prohibition of Production, Transfer, Stockpiling and Use of Anti-Personnel Landmines by January 2017.

The convention, which was signed in 1999, required the country to have cleared its landmines within 10 years.

However, various impediments, including financial constraints following the withdrawal of previous funders like the European Union and the U.S., have made it impossible to complete the task within the stipulated time.

Sekeramayi added that the government was on the verge of engaging two more demining organizations, which would enable it to get more clarity on the progress made in the program. Enditem