GENEVA, Jan 15 (AFP -NT) - International attempts resume here Monday to curb the use of anti-personnel mines, of which 110 million are estimated to be lying in wait for the unwary in 64 countries. A similar number are in weapons stocks worldwide. Landmines dating back to World War II kill and mutilate around 2,000 people every month, make large tracts of land uncultivable and deter the return of refugees, causing a massive drain on national economies. Used more and more as terror weapons against civilian populations rather than for purely military purposes, they stay in place long after conflicts are over. Many nowadays are largely made of plastic, and almost impossible to detect. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which wants a complete ban on such weapons, 25 states are in real crisis because of mines on their soil. The worst hit areas are Angola, Eritrea, Mozambique, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Bosnia and Iraqi Kurdistan, says the ICRC. Hundreds of thousands of mines in Somalia bar herders from their pastures, while in Libya 27 percent of cultivable land still has mines laid during the North African conflict of World War II. Even a short conflict, like that between Georgia and the breakaway republic of Abkhazia, can produce dozens of casualties from mines. According to the ICRC a third of mine victims who are not killed lose a limb. A child wounded at the age of 10 will need as it grows a succession of 25 artificial limbs costing a total 3,125 dollars, and in many countries, where a typical monthly income is no more than 15 dollars will have to make do with crutches. The purchase price of a mine varies between three and 30 dollars, but the cost of lifting it and defusing it is between 300 and 1,000 dollars, while for every 5,000 mines cleared one disposal expert is killed and two more wounded. The cost of clearing the world of landmines is put at 33 billion dollars, while at the present rate it will take some 1100 years. And that is providing that all new mine-laying stops forthwith. But a UN conference on mine-clearing held in Geneva in July obtained only 20 million of the 75 million dollars sought. Meanwhile in the whole of last year 100,000 mines were cleared, and an estimated two million more were laid. gl/mb AFP /AA1234/130553 GMT JAN 96

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