U.N. to train young Afghans on land mines

KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 15 (UPI) -- Afghanistan, with the help of a U.N. agency, wants to teach 6 million schoolchildren how to avoid land mines.

The Ministry of Education and the U.N. Mine Action Center for Afghanistan began training 125 people who will travel throughout the country to train teachers at schools, with a goal of reaching every student by the end of 2008, the U.N. Integrated Regional Information Networks reported Thursday.

The children will also learn how to recognize and report unexploded ordnance, the U.N. agency said.

"We plan to include land-mine awareness as a temporary element of our national educational curriculum," Siddiq Patman, deputy minister for the ministry, told IRIN.

Every month, about 60 people -- half of them children -- are killed or injured by mines and unexploded shells, officials said. In all, some 70,000 Afghans have either been killed or disabled by land mines in the past 20 years.