Prince Harry calls for international governments to deliver on promise of a landmine free 2025

Last night, Prince Harry, Patron of The HALO Trust, spoke at the #LandmineFree2025 event at Kensington Palace in London hosted by the world’s two leading landmine charities, Mines Advisory Group (MAG) and The HALO Trust. The event, held on International Mine Awareness Day, marked the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana's walk through an Angolan minefield to help raise awareness of the global issue, and the signing of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty.

Prince Harry visited minefields in both Angola in 2013 and Mozambique in 2010 – one of the countries now declared landmine free – meeting amputees and witnessing the devastating impact landmines have on some of the poorest people in mine-affected communities. Leading landmine charities have estimated that £100m will be needed globally every year to make the world mine free by 2025.

Read more: Exclusive: Prince Harry for GQ

In our upcoming May issue of GQ, out Thursday, the magazine's Features Director Jonathan Heaf visited Bogatar, Colombia with war photographer Giles Duly to report on the work of The HALO Trust in the area. After over five decades of civil war, Colombia's mountainsides are pitted with landmines, many of which have claimed Colombian victims' lives or limbs. Heaf spoke to some of these "forgotten" victims, as well as brave men and women "demining" Colombia. Below are some preview quotes from the feature:

"Landmines are indiscriminate and everywhere in this country; there are an estimated 80,000 covering a country twice the size of France. There are no maps, only a handful of GPS markers and little reliable intelligence as to where they have been laid. No one knows when the next one is going to go off, nor who will suffer as a result. A farmer tending to his crops? A child walking back from school?"

"Growing up, Carlos witnessed his friend stepping on a landmine only a few metres away from him; he'd missed the device himself only by inches. The boy died instantly, limbs blackened and shredded, hanging from the trees above like macabre pinatas. Carlos sat looking at his friend's body, sobbing and shell-shocked."

"Founded in 1988, Halo is now the oldest and the largest humanitarian landmine clearance organisation in the world. Over the past 29 years the fund has worked to destroy over 1.5 million landmines world-wide, more than 200,000 cluster munitions and more than 11,000 minefields over close to 15,000km of road. The charity's profile was given a publicity boost when Diana, Princess of Wales walked through one of the charity's minefields in Angola. In 2013 Prince Harry followed in his mother's footsteps, becoming a patron of the charity to mark their 25th anniversary."

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GQ's feature on landmines in Colombia, "Explosive Peace", by Jonathan Heaf will be in the new May issue of the magazine, out tomorrow.

For more information on MAG and The HALO Trust please visit: LandmineFree2025.org or maginternational.org or halotrust.org Read more: Exclusive: Prince Harry for GQ