For the first time, AWB’s activity is recorded and shows on the ICBL Landmine Monitor 2000: 

MIDDLE EAST/NORTH AFRICA - STATES PARTIES ••••
NON-SIGNATORIES BAHRAIN Key developments since March 1999: Landmine Monitor has discovered that the U.S. Air Force plans to stockpile antipersonnel mines ...
... An Israeli NGO, Aid Without Borders, conducts mine awareness education programs in Angola under the auspices of UNICEF. Aid Without Borders has also ...
... 202 Interview with Erez T. Yanuv, Founder of Aid Without Borders, Jerusalem, 1 June 2000. 203 Interview with Benny Abileah, Israeli Ministry of Foreign ...

81% Thu, 07 Sep 2000 04:46:51 GMT http://www.icbl.org/lm/2000/report/LMWeb-29.php3

Great news from Kosovo:

As Kosovar refugees started returning to their shattered land in June 99', there was a great fear that many returnees, especially children, would be hurt by land-mines, booby-traps and unexploded ordinance (UXOs); cluster-bomblets, bombs and shells.  It was obvious that mine-clearing efforts will be painfully slow.

One of AWB's first actions was to send volunteers to participate in the Mine Awareness Program, teaching children and the general public of the potential hazardous nature of these silent killers.

While most of the suspected land-mines and UXOs sites are still not cleared, the latest official figures -- published by the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) -- show there was a dramatic decline in the numbers of victims from land-mines and UXOs this summer, compared with last, based on data from all around Kosovo province:

June 99' - Injured Total:  102     June 99' - Killed Total:  39
July 99' - Injured Total:  88     July 99' - Killed Total:   21

June 00' - Injured Total:  8     June 00' - Killed Total:  2
July 00' - Injured Total:  5     July 00' - Killed Total:  0

(figures collected by ICRC and officially published by UNMIK, August 8, 2000)

AWB volunteer youth instructors in Kosovo participated (August - November 99') in the training of the first 25 local Mine Awareness trainers from different local and international NGOs, in cooperation with MAG, UNICEF and UNMACC.

AWB volunteers were supported by the Austrian government, through HOPE 87.  Radio communications equipment for the Mine Awareness volunteers was donated by Motorola, Israel.

In late 1999 and into 2000, three former AWB volunteers continued their work in western Kosovo with the new British organization, Mines Awareness Trust (MAT).  One of them, is currently still involved in Mine Awareness activities in Kosovo.

Siyua Le'lo Gvulot, AID WITHOUT BORDERS (AWB), an Israeli voluntary humanitarian organization, based in Jerusalem, wishes to warmly thank every one of the persons involved in this great activity, which resulted in so amazing and dramatic figures of saving lives.
 

ICRC initiative on cluster bombs global moratorium

AWB strongly supports the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) call for a global moratorium on cluster bombs.  This call is initiated now, after it was proven that the weapon, used by NATO forces in Kosovo, had caused hundreds of casualties throughout the province.

The Geneva-based ICRC called, early September, for a suspension of the use of cluster bombs, until there is an agreement on their use and clearance.  It also demanded a ban against their use in populated areas.

The ICRC urged NATO to take responsibility for the clearance of unexploded bomblets, saying up to 10 percent of 290,000 bomblets dropped by its planes failed to explode.

The ICRC said cluster bombs killed up to 150 civilians during the war and caused 50 deaths and 151 injuries in the 12 months after the conflict ended in June 1999.  By comparison, mines killed 30 people and wounded almost 200 after the war.

Cluster bombs are dropped by aircraft, each weapon containing up to 2,000 submunitions or bomblets which are scattered over a wide area.  Each submunition contains razor-sharp shrapnel and some include flammable material.

Cluster bombs were used in conflicts in Vietnam, the Falklands and the 1991 U.S.-led Gulf war against Iraq.  The United States is also reported to have supplied cluster bombs to Israel during the 22-year-long occupation of south Lebanon which ended in May.   Russia is believed to have similar devices, and Chechen separatist guerrillas have charged Russian forces of using them in recent counter-insurgency campaigns in the Caucasus.

Angola - one year on:

AWB volunteer youth instructors, Rachel Dassa and Yahav Dori, were sent to Angola, mid-June, for a 6 months stay.  They will serve as coordinators for UNICEF Mine Awareness program there.

It is a mission supported by the Israeli Foreign Ministry.  Israel has been contributing young volunteers to this program during the past 4 years.

Dori and Dassa will continue the work of Shahaf Alexsander, who was the first AWB volunteer to be sent on this mission, September 1999.

Plans are being made to enlarge AWB's volunteers and experts' involvement in Angola in other fields, as medical training and public health campaigns in needed communities.
 

Kosovo - one year on:

Just over a year since the last eruption in the Kosovo crisis, AWB is about to close the Kosova Project, but leaves the door open, for possible sending of volunteers and experts to join other organizations still working in Kosovo, and for possible continuation of a vocational training for youth in Elbasn, Albania.

In early-July, an AWB volunteer psychologist, Dr. Moshe Landsman, was sent for a 2 months volunteering in Kosovo, teaching and training fellow residents at the Pristina Hospital psychiatric department.  He is following, AWB volunteer psychologist, Rakefet Sella, who spent a full month in Kosovo in May.

This mission, the first long-term project AWB was involved with, is being directed by former AWB's psychosocial program advisor, Dr. Mindy Prager, an American psychiatrist working in Kosovo since last summer.

AWB's Kosova Project was supported by TPO (Netherlands), DFID (Britain) and The Rich Foundation (Switzerland).

Following a request by the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Landsman, submitted, by early-September, a draft proposal, 'Building Child Mental Health in Kosova': a basic program, featuring a detailed plan for the training of local professional staff, for enabling them to eventually deliver child and adolescent mental health services throughout the province.