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Friday, March 2, 2001 - Web posted at 9:22:13 AM GMT Mines bedevil Omega OMEGA in West Caprivi is once again a place of fear after two people lost legs in separate explosions and more than 10 landmines were found on footpaths and around a power generator. People in the area claim the attackers, who came from Angola, left a letter telling civilians to vacate the area and leave it to Namibian soldiers and the Special Field Force (SFF). Markus Kudum, a farmer, lost his right foot after detonating an anti-personnel mine on a footpath while walking to a friend's house last Saturday morning. A visually impaired elderly man, who was identified only as Ndemba, lost both his legs when he stepped on a mine in the yard of his house also on Saturday. Both men are receiving treatment in a Kavango hospital. Aid workers in the area said they were concerned that the injured were taken to hospital only three hours after they had lost their limbs. In that time they were treated at the local clinic. The security forces reportedly could not take the injured to the nearest hospital, because they said they were not on duty. Two other people, including a three-year-old, had close shaves with the military explosives, which people in Omega said were laid in places where local people would easily detonate them by accident. One of the landmines was found near a diesel powered electricity generator. The tracks of the perpetrators pointed to southern Angola, where remnants of Jonas Savimbi's Unita rebels have been operating since the Angolan armed forces (FAA) destroyed their bases in an offensive launched in 1999. At the end of 1999 Namibia became directly embroiled in Angola's civil war after inviting the FAA to launch attacks on Unita from Namibian soil. Attacks on civilians in Namibia have since increased, with most being blamed on Unita and rogue FAA elements although Namibian security forces have also been accused of human rights abuses. The troubled Kxoe community met with representatives of the Office of the Ombudsman last week and reported instances of human rights abuses, including unlawful arrests and harassment. The people at the meeting requested Ombudswoman Bience Gawanas to investigate the disappearance of 13 young men arrested by security forces in August last year. Some people who attended the meeting said relatives of the missing men told the Ombudswoman that some of the their loved ones were beaten before their arrests. But the Ministry of Defence has denied detaining a group of young men last August, maintaining the army has no powers of arrest. The Director of Investigations in the Office of the Ombudsman, Tousy Namiseb, confirmed that a complaint had been laid about 13 disappearances, but not the figure of 18 reported in this newspaper last week. Namiseb said they would "raise the issue" with the Ministries of Defence and Home Affairs to get to the bottom of the complaint and would also investigate reports of harassment by Namibian security forces. |
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