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More land mines
Northern Mauritania is the main door to Africa for trans-Saharan tourists. Plans are in place to build a road from Morocco, which will help traffic increase exponentially. Sadly, settlements that would normally benefit from the increased traffic will not see any benefit—the road lies in the very heart of Mauritania’s minefields. A new peace plan proposed in 2003 to end the Western Sahara conflict makes demining of the area—which is at the heart of the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA)— particularly timely. It could become a home to Sahraoui refugees, but mines and UXO continue to hinder the use of its scarce economic potential, vital for the country to attain a national goal of poverty reduction. Mauritania ratified the anti-personnel mine-ban treaty in 1999. The government has since set up a national commission responsible for its implementation and a National Bureau for Humanitarian Demining.
