European Union Director for Central Asia and the Caucasus Per Brix Knudsen told journalists in Dushanbe on 16 October that the EU will commit 12 million euros ($13.9 million) over the next three years for Tajik land-mine removal along the Uzbek border. Two-thirds of that amount has already been promised by individual EU states, he added, and the union is looking for ways to secure the rest. Tajikistan has already begun clearing land mines left over from the 1992-97 civil war, but has not started removing mines planted along the Uzbek-Tajik border by the Uzbek military in 2000 and 2001 to prevent incursions by Muslim militants. Tajik officials have said that more than 50 Tajik citizens have been killed and hundreds have been injured by land mines in recent years. (ITAR-TASS)