BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Up to 25 million land mines, or almost one for every Iraqi, remain buried in thousands of minefields across Iraq and are hampering development of rich oil deposits, officials said on Wednesday.
Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the mines were spread across about 4,000 minefields left across Iraq after the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, the first Gulf War in 1991 and the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.
"We have been busy with the biggest threat against our existence, which is terrorism ... so the many mines did not get the attention they deserved," Dabbagh said at a conference with United Nations officials in Baghdad on the problem.
"For every Iraqi citizen there is a mine that could kill him at any moment," he said.
Iraqi Environment Minister Nermeen Othman said she had been appointed by the government to lead efforts to clear Iraq of land mines.
"Because of the contamination by land mines, Iraq has lost access to thousands of hectares of farm lands and been unable to invest in its oil fields," Othman said.
David Shearer, U.N. deputy special representative for humanitarian, reconstruction and development in Iraq, said the heavy contamination of land mines had many different effects.
"The importance of this explosive material is not just about the damage it can do to ordinary people, it also impacts the economic development of Iraq itself," he said.
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