Jordan Times
Saturday, June 5, 1999
Queen Noor honoured for landmine campaign
BOSTON (R) — Her Majesty Queen Noor was honoured by the United Nations Children's Fund on Thursday for her work in ridding the world of landmines.
Like Britain's late Princess Diana, Queen Noor has become a patron of both the international campaign to ban landmines and the U.S.-based Landmine Survivors Network.
Before the UNICEF ceremony in Boston, Queen Noor told reporters that the Middle East has “perhaps half the landmines in place” in the world.
“They are still killing men, women and children on a daily basis,” the Queen said.
Experts have estimated that 2,000 people each month are injured or killed by landmines around the world. Jordan has mines along great swathes of its borders with Israel, the West Bank and Syria.
Queen Noor noted that Jordan has been removing landmines from its territory since 1993.
“We will have completed it in significant areas of the Jordan Valley, especially around sites such as Bethany, the site of the baptism of Jesus Christ,” she said.
The U.S. in April loaned Jordan prototype demining equipment designed to help it clear tens of thousands of landmines. The two remote-controlled machines, which look like small armour-plated bulldozers, were designed to clear passages through the dozens of minefields littering the border at far greater speed and safety than people carrying out mine clearance.