THE UK is to triple its support for demining work to £100 million in a bid to eradicate the devices by 2025.
International Development Secretary Priti Patel announced funding to help clear land amounting to more than 20,000 football pitches and safeguard 800,000 people.
Scotland’s Halo Trust, based in Dumfries, is among the bodies leading global efforts to tackle the buried munitions. Princess Diana visited them in the field and Prince Harry, who became patron of the HALO Trust’s 25th Anniversary Appeal, has viewed mine fields in Angola and Mozambique.
The Department for International Development (DFID) cash will run over three years and Patel said: “Landmines are a global scourge that destroy opportunity and hope. We do not have to accept this.
“Britain has had a historic role in tackling the indiscriminate and lethal legacy of landmines, but there is still more to do.”
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