Children targeted by landmines, says McCarthy

IRELAND football manager Mick McCarthy displayed flashes of passion yesterday when he lashed the use of landmines as cruel weapons that maim and kill innocent Bosnian children.

“Many are deliberately brightly coloured to attract and injure children as they walk home from school, as they play football in the fields, as they work on their family farms,” he told business leaders at a UNICEF charity lunch in Dublin.

However, McCarthy was repeatedly questioned about Roy Keane by journalists, but he refused to make any comment on the Manchester United footballer.

Since McCarthy’s visit to Bosnia last April to draw world attention to the plight of innocent children injured by landmine explosions, 15 Bosnian children have lost limbs.

Over one million landmines remain in Bosnia, seven years after the bloody war following the break up of Yugoslavia.

McCarthy noted “there’s more landmines than schoolgoing children in the country”. Landmines cost 4 each to manufacture but 1,000 to disarm.

“I wanted to help in any way I could,” said McCarthy. “It is very sad and distressing to see young children who have lost limbs. But what is amazing is to see the power of these children and how they get on. They keep smiling and living their lives and that is something we can all learn from.”

McCarthy, who has been appointed a special patron of UNICEF Ireland, told 200 business leaders who each paid 150 for the charity function: “If

my name and my face can help raise money and awareness about this tragic situation, then I will use it and show it.

“We all have a responsibility as global citizens, but as leaders in sport, business or entertainment in Ireland we have an added responsibility to show the way.”

Commenting on his Bosnian experience last Easter, McCarthy said: “Nothing prepared me for the awful reality of this legacy of war.

“I sat in a classroom with children as young as seven who were being taught what to do if they spotted a mine. Seven years old.

“And I met with a young boy called Dejan who lost both his legs while playing football.”

Over the next three years UNICEF is funding a 500,000 programme which will educate 600,000 school-age children in Bosnia on prevention of mine injuries.