Princess Diana Brought Attention to Land Mines, but Their Danger Lingers

Despite Princess Diana’s public crusade in the late1990’s to ban land mines, they, and other unexploded ordinances, remain an intractable problem around the world, killing and maiming thousands a year – most of them civilians, many children. Perhaps no country illustrates the problem more dramatically than Vietnam.

Nearly four decades after the Vietnam War ended, the country is still grappling daily with thousands of unexploded ordinances left behind. They continue to cripple the innocent, hamper agricultural development, and affect foreign policy.

But as Paul Heslop, director of the United Nations Mine Action Service, told Retro Report, finding an effective solution is not easy in a world still often at war. That future is being written today in conflict zones such as Yemen and Syria, one cluster bomb at a time.