“Mines are a truly inhumane tool, which does not respect the end of wars, nor the peace treaties. And I believe that, unfortunately, this will be the fate that will also fall to Ukraine”. This was declared to Adnkronos by Rossella Miccio, president of Emergency, recommending to the international community that the reclamation of the mined territories “be a priority, if you really want to help Ukraine”. “The mines, once sown, planted or hidden, continue to remain there, until someone meets them and therefore loses a limb, their eyes, if not their life. We have seen this for 28 years of work in the countries. in war: still today in Afghanistan we have victims of mines used by the Soviets during their period of occupation and every day we treat at least one or two wounded by mines “, says the president of the association founded by Gino Strada, who has been involved since 1994 to treat war wounded and bombs that have exploded after the cessation of weapons. These are mostly “civilians, because mines are very rarely used to hit military targets, almost always instead to undermine the morale and physique of civil society “, says Miccio, defining them” a ballast that slows down or blocks the recovery of a country, even when a conflict is over. “Many of the victims of anti-personnel mines, then, are minors, as is already happening in Ukraine, where on 17 April iland five children died as a result of booby traps left by Russian troops in Trostianets, in the Sumy region. “Some mines – says the president of Emergency – look like toys and this should really make us reflect on how far the mental illness of the human being can go who invent tools of death that have a similar shape”. Emergency has always promoted the banning of anti-personnel mines. “To date there are at least sixty countries that still have a declared presence of mines on their territory. And unfortunately more than thirty are those that have not yet signed the treaty that bans them and that continue to produce them, among these there are states United, Russia and China “, says Miccio, underlining that” if producing a mine costs very little, from three to ten dollars, demining is instead an operation that costs 100-150 times more “. This is why the appeal of the president is to “help Ukraine and all the other countries in which these inhuman weapons have been used, in the demining activity, which takes a long time” and represents “a very heavy burden, which these countries cannot bear by alone “. First, however, the fighting must stop: “To talk about a real demining of the Ukrainian territories, unfortunately, I fear that we will have to wait a long time, because as long as the weapons speak, it will be really difficult to be able to do it extensively. I hope the international community is committed from this point of view “, says Miccio. The association is currently involved in Italy and Moldova in supporting refugees and sending medicines to Ukrainian hospitals,” which are all overloaded with wounded, many soldiers, but also civilians. They have doctors and nurses, so from the point of view of the staff they are able to meet most of the needs, but they need more and more hospital materials and medicines “, the president of Adnkronos told Adnkronos. Emergency, ensuring that “where there are other requests and other needs, we will certainly do our best to lend a hand, both during the conflict and – hopefully soon – when the confl It will be concluded and there will still be a need for specific skills in rehabilitation, war and reconstructive surgery, because the wounds that the war unfortunately leaves are a burden that the country will bear for a long time to come “.