Actor Rosamund Pike is visiting Sri Lanka this week in her role as ambassador to the Mines Advisory Group (MAG), as the country marks the clearance of one million landmines over the past 17 years.

Pike, a Golden Globe, Emmy and Olivier award winner, is spending time with Sri Lankan deminers and visiting two minefields in the Mannar and Mullaitivu districts in the north. She is meeting families from both Tamil and Sinhala communities affected by mine contamination, including a survivor of a landmine accident, and attending a risk-education session at a local school where children are taught to recognise the dangers of mines and unexploded ordnance.

She is also expected to meet Prime Minister Dr Harini Amarasuriya, the Minister of Housing Construction and Water Supply, and officials of the National Mine Action Centre.

Casualties down from 250 a year to three

Alongside the one-million milestone, annual landmine casualties in Sri Lanka have fallen from roughly 250 to three in 2024, according to figures cited by the Daily Mirror. Clearance work has also allowed about one million displaced people to return home.

MAG has worked in Sri Lanka since 2002 and currently operates in the Mannar, Vavuniya, Mullaitivu, Kilinochchi, Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Ampara districts. Its teams have made roughly 103 square kilometres of land safe.

‘The danger, even seventeen years after conflict, is real’

“When MAG releases decontaminated land to people, communities can trust that their land is now safe to farm, to walk through and to harvest necessities from,” Pike said. “The danger, even seventeen years after conflict, is real. Unexploded ordnance is violent and deadly.”

British High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Andrew Patrick called the progress “a remarkable achievement, made possible by the courage and dedication of Sri Lankan deminers, the leadership of the Government of Sri Lanka, and the support of international partners.”

The United Kingdom has supported humanitarian mine action in Sri Lanka since the end of the armed conflict, work that returns land to communities for farming, housing and infrastructure.

Sources: Daily Mirror; Lanka Business Online; Hiru News.