Over 700 mine action experts gather to assess Mine Ban Convention

The Scandinavian country is hosting what is the world’s largest gathering of its kind, during which delegates will assess the Mine Ban Convention, a 20-year-old pact which includes 164 countries.

To Oslo Norway now, where over 700 mine action experts and survivors from around the world have gathered to reduce the growing number of civilians maimed or killed by landmines, with the goal of seeing a mine-free world. 

The Scandinavian country is hosting what is the world's largest gathering of its kind, during which delegates will assess the Mine Ban Convention, a 20-year-old pact which includes 164 countries.  

So far, 52 million anti-personnel mines have been destroyed under the convention, allowing millions of square meters of once contaminated land, to be used again.  

Though the capital city Oslo is 2,000 kilometers away from the nearest minefield, Norway is championing the ban on the "indiscriminate weapons", the Norwegian Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Hans Battskar said, having hosted the Convention's adoption in 1977.