Middle East Focus: A Legacy of European Wars: Our Backyard, Our Limbs…………

Arabia Deserta

Middle East Focus: A Legacy of European Wars: Our Backyard, Our Limbs…………

A Legacy of European Wars: Our Backyard, Our Limbs…………

“The battle of El Alamein was a turning point in World War II but the unexploded munitions it left behind continue to kill and maim the local population…… In 1942, their descendants were still grazing animals, this time in the Sahara, as they witnessed the massed armies of Montgomery and Rommel fight out the pivotal World War II battle of El Alamein. Today however, Egyptian Bedouin are not merely onlookers but reluctant combatants in a battle against death and injury in their ancestral lands. The Allied and Axis forces are long gone from North Africa but their lethal legacy remains - millions of rusting landmines, bombs, mortars and artillery shells lying in wait for the unwary shepherds and their children…… Today there are no reliable maps of the minefields because their deadly crop constantly shifts in the desert winds. You cannot see the mines buried in the sand. When the Bedouin discover them, the hard way - ploughing them up in their olive groves or digging them up as they scrape a pit for a campfire - all they can do is mark the spot with a cairn of stones to warn those who follow……...”

I used to read about the landmines of the Western Sahara when I was a child. I was fascinated by them, and by Montgomery and Rommel. They are still killing people (as are occasional mines in Kuwait, Southeast Asia, and other places), as are cluster bombs. They will still be killing hapless people another generation or two from now.
Ban thefucking landmines and the cluster bombs.
Cheers
mhg

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