Emotional princess highlights suffering of landmine victims in the Bosnian war

Most of the villagers didn't know who she was

Most of the villagers didn't know who she was. Others were merely charmed that Princess Diana agreed to be photographed with them as they described how their limbs were blown off by landmines in the fields nearby.

As the Sunday Mirror published a quite different set of photographs yesterday - proving, it claimed, that Princess Diana had found "happiness at last" with the Harrods heir, Mr Dodi Fayed - the victims of the landmines in Bosnia provoked an emotional response from Diana.

Clutching the hand of Mirzeta Gabelic, who was the last landmine victim in Sarajevo, Princess Diana found it difficult to hold her emotions in check as the young girl spoke of losing her right leg. It was a simple story of crossing the street to take a shortcut to the market, but she stepped on a landmine and for months afterwards she was unable to walk.

"Diana started to cry when she heard Mirzeta's story," said Father Roberto Maryks, a Jesuit priest from the Jesuit Refugee Service who arranged for Mirzeta to be fitted with an artificial leg.

READ MORE

The princess not only heard of how Mirzeta had been left to sit and move about on the floor after losing part of a leg six months ago but also saw the plight of Mirzeta's six year old sister.

"I think the little girl has cerebral palsy," said Mr Ken Rutherford, a co-founder of Landmine Survivors' Network, with whom Princess Diana has been travelling in Bosnia.

Mr Rutherford said: "As the princess walked in she saw her just lying on the floor, unable to walk or talk.

"The princess walked right over and picked up the little girl and held her. The youngster started touching her fingers and smiling. She grabbed Diana's fingers like a baby. She smiled round at us all.

"It's so sad, that family's situation. There was real emotion during that visit," he said.

This was the sort of human suffering the princess had wanted to highlight before the world during her visit, said Mr Rutherford.

Princess Diana has taken up the issue of landmines with the backing of the International Development Secretary, Ms Clare Short, and the United Nations, which has called for a world-wide ban on the use of landmines.

But if she was finding it difficult to concentrate on the task at hand as the tabloids fight over "The Kiss" photographs at home, all around her agreed she was unaffected.

Dashing across Bosnia from one village to another, Princess Diana has remained silent on the brouhaha in Britain.

Presenting birthday cake to Mr Mohammed Soljankic, whose feet were blown off in the hills near Tuzla, or embracing an elderly woman as she grieved at a cemetery in Sarajevo, Princess Diana has focused the world's attention on landmines once more.

Looking behind the headlines, the Bosnia visit comes ahead of a meeting in Norway next month when up to 100 governments will discuss a ban on landmines.

Estimates of the number of mines still in the ground in Bosnia - most of them unmapped - vary from one to seven million.

Mr Rutherford described the visit as "a total success".

"If anything is going on in London, it is on the periphery. It's a shame people are worrying about such trivial matters," he said.

As the British press whipped itself into a frenzy over the photographs support for Diana came from an unlikely source. Expressing his disapproval at their publication, the Minister without Portfolio, Mr Peter Mandelson, said the photographs were "intrusive".

Speaking on BBC's Breakfast with Frost, he said the Press Complaints Commission and press self-regulation would continue. Mr Mandelson also rejected criticism that adopting the European Convention on Human Rights into British law would introduce a privacy law "by the back door".

The princess won the hearts of a group of French soldiers at Sarajevo airport.

Before she flew off in the same white private jet which brought her to Bosnia on Friday, she was asked to pose with the 50 men. She shyly agreed to sit crosslegged in the midst of their ranks for a formal photograph on the tarmac.

"Everyone is loving her," said Capt Jean-Luc Baldillou.