The Slovenian-run International Trust Fund For Demining and Mine Victims Assistance (ITF) and Colombia signed on Tuesday a memorandum on cooperation in demining. The cooperation will include rehabilitation of mine victims, expert training and social reintegration programmes for mine victims, the ITF said on Tuesday.
The memorandum was signed by Ciro Alfonso Arevalo Yepes of the Columbian Embassy in Austria, and ITF director Goran Gacnik.
The initiative for the cooperation was launched by Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel in 2005, when the then Colombian Foreign Minister Carolina Barco Isakson visited Slovenia.
The country with the biggest number of land mine deaths in the world, Colombia registered more than 8,000 unexploded mines or other explosive objects between 1990 and 2006, while over 1,200 people were killed and almost 4,000 wounded by explosions.
Since its founding in 1998, the ITF has collected over US$ 236m that were used on clearing more than 78m square metres of land and helping 962 mine victims, the press release from the ITF reads.
It plans to expand its operations also to Lebanon, Kazakhstan and SE Asia next year. The biggest donator to the fund, which was set up by the Slovenian government in 1998, is the US State Department, which doubles the donations given by others.
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