Landmine victims in the heart of Montreal

MONTREAL, Aug. 28, 2013 /CNW Telbec/ - Every two hours in the world, a civilian is a victim of a landmine or other unexploded ordnance such as cluster bombs. Despite these weapons - symbols of the war after the war - are forbidden by two major international treaties, they are still threatening, harming or killing thousands of innocents in nearly 80 countries and territories in the world. That's why Handicap International will organize its seventh edition of the Pyramid of Shoes to support the victims.

Kanha was 8 years old when she lost a leg on a landmine in Cambodia… Raed was celebrating his son's birthday in a public square in Lebanon, when the boy found a strange object... that prematurely took away his life a few minutes later. And the Laotian Phongsavath was going to school with friends when he tried to open an abandoned bomblet to understand what it was...

Three lives. Three stories. But the same injustice that hit innocent people and branded their bodies and their heart forever.

Since 1982, Handicap International has been working to repair these broken lives. Demining, prevention and risk education, rehabilitation, social and professional inclusion or advocacy are its main activities to avoid casualties and to allow victims to start a new life.

In 1992, Handicap International, with a handful of other humanitarian organizations, took the lead of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, for which it shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, the same year when the Ottawa Treaty against landmines was open for signature in Canada.

Since then, the NGO kept on mobilizing people all around the world to refuse the injustice caused by landmines, cluster munitions and all situations of armed violence such as those reported again recently in Syria.

A mobilization that will be represented by a symbolic Pyramid of Shoes, held at the heart of Montreal and in several European cities, next Saturday, September 28, from 10 am to 5 pm.

www.handicap-international.ca/en

Pictures: www.bit.ly/pics_hi

SOURCE: Handicap International

Jerome Bobin, Communications Manager
[email protected] - Tél. [phone] poste 227 - Cell. 514 567 9228

Handicap International Canada 

1819, Rene-Levesque West Blvd, suite 401, Montreal (QC) H3H 2P5 Canada