Sri Lanka to step up mine clearing: army

Sri Lanka's military is to send more troops to clear land mines in areas recently wrested from Tamil rebel control so that civilians can return to their homes, the top army officer said Thursday.

"I have already sent 400 engineering troops for de-mining and I am sending more battalions to be trained in 'humanitarian de-mining'," Lieutenant General Jagath Jayasuriya told reporters after a ceremony at the Armoured Corp headquarters in Colombo.

The army chief, who took over the 200,000-strong forces in July, said he also planned to deploy heavy equipment to clear vast mine-fields in the Wanni region where the final battles with the Tamil Tigers were fought.

Jayasuriya said the military did not have a precise estimate for the number of mines planted by the defeated Tamil Tiger guerrillas, but ground troops had encountered extensive mine fields during the final battles.

"We have four international non-governmental organisations helping us now and I want to use mechanised mine clearing to speed up the process," he said adding that the process was key to re-settling war displaced civilians. Read more ...