{"id":47988,"date":"2021-10-09T20:26:49","date_gmt":"2021-10-09T18:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/?p=47988"},"modified":"2021-10-09T19:34:03","modified_gmt":"2021-10-09T17:34:03","slug":"zimbabwean-who-cleared-falklands-mines-urges-uk-to-rethink-cut-on-zims-landmines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/zimbabwean-who-cleared-falklands-mines-urges-uk-to-rethink-cut-on-zims-landmines","title":{"rendered":"Zimbabwean Who Cleared Falklands Mines Urges UK To Rethink Cut On Zim\u2019s Landmines"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press<\/a> – Zimbabwe<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>The Guardian<\/b> – A ZIMBABWEAN man who helped clear hundreds of landmines from the Falkland Islands has urged Britain not to go ahead with cuts that would see the government pull funding from his home country just as it nears \u201cmine-free\u201d status.<\/p>\n

Cuthbert Mutukwa, 42, left his family in Zimbabwe to work for two years de-mining the Falkland Islands, the British overseas territory that was peppered with about 13,000 mines by Argentinian forces during the 1982 war.<\/p>\n

The Falklands were declared \u201cmine-free\u201d in 2020 after Mutukwa and other Zimbabwean de-miners worked in tough conditions to rid the islands of the explosive devices. Mutukwa, an employee of the Halo Trust, says he cleared 218.<\/p>\n

But, if planned cuts to the aid budget are carried out, UK funding for clearing mines and unexploded bombs around the world is expected to drop by about 75%, from \u00a3100m to \u00a325m.<\/p>\n

Projects such as the Halo Trust\u2019s work in Zimbabwe will have to be drastically reduced in size, and Mutukwa and his colleagues will face redundancy, even as they near their goal of ridding the country of landmines by 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I heard of this cut I was sad because here we are living under threat of landmines,\u201d said Mutukwa, speaking from Harare on Friday. \u201cSo what I feel is: can [the] British government finish this de-mining programme in Zimbabwe?\u201d<\/p>\n

The decision to axe the mine clearance budget, first reported by the Time on Thursday, was taken by Dominic Raab, who was replaced as foreign secretary last month by Liz Truss in Boris Johnson\u2019s cabinet reshuffle.<\/p>\n

James Cowan, CEO of the Halo Trust, said he hoped Truss would \u201cshow some political leadership\u201d and reverse the cut. \u201cHopefully sense will prevail, because this is not a reasonable cut under any circumstances and it will have a profound effect on people\u2019s lives,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mutukwa, who has worked for Halo for eight years, knows that only too well. His work in Zimbabwe has involved clearing areas close to schools, and he has known at least one school pupil to have died from inadvertently stepping on a landmine.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe schoolchildren were under threat of landmines, crossing the minefields every day going to school and coming back from school,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe community nearby was also under threat. So, by clearing the landmines, the lives of the children and the community were saved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zimbabwe is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world, with dense zones of landmines laid by the former Rhodesian regime along the country\u2019s borders with Mozambique and Zambia during the liberation war in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

The Halo Trust estimates that these unfenced minefields have killed or injured more than 1,500 people since independence in 1980.<\/p>\n

In contrast to the Soviet bloc landmines that are found in many parts of the world, the mines in Zimbabwe are largely South African-made and \u201cvery sophisticated\u201d, said Cowan. \u201cThey\u2019re made of plastic. They are hermetically sealed so they don\u2019t have any water ingress, and therefore they don\u2019t corrode, and therefore they remain as lethal as the day they were laid.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement, Darren Cormack, CEO of the Mines Advisory Group (Mag), said: \u201cTo cut all funding to Zimbabwe seems especially unjust in light of the fact it was Zimbabwean de-miners who helped the UK to make the Falkland Islands landmine-free just a year ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office was approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. The Guardian – A ZIMBABWEAN man who helped clear hundreds of landmines from the Falkland Islands has urged Britain not to go ahead with cuts that would see the government pull funding from his home country just as it nears \u201cmine-free\u201d status. Cuthbert Mutukwa, 42, left his family in Zimbabwe to work […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":47987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6,35,15],"tags":[1493,2189,19],"class_list":["post-47988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-economy","category-homepage-english","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-zimbabwe-2","tag-zimbabwe"],"yoast_head":"\nZimbabwean Who Cleared Falklands Mines Urges UK To Rethink Cut On Zim\u2019s Landmines - zimbabwe<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Guardian - A ZIMBABWEAN man who helped clear hundreds of landmines from the Falkland Islands has urged Britai ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/zimbabwean-who-cleared-falklands-mines-urges-uk-to-rethink-cut-on-zims-landmines\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Zimbabwean Who Cleared Falklands Mines Urges UK To Rethink Cut On Zim\u2019s Landmines\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Guardian - 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