Big challenges in the south

//Att. Subscribers, this report is part of a comprehensive set of features, background reports, interviews and other resources on landmine-related issues titled 'IRIN Web Special on Humanitarian Mine Action, published ahead of the 2004 Nairobi Summit on a Mine Free World.'// The deadly use of landmines in global conflicts have left a lethal legacy hampering reconstruction and post-conflict recovery throughout the world. The Sudan is no different. The US-based agency Human Rights Watch calculate that more than 340 anti-personnel landmine types have been produced in at least 48 nations world wide. And it is estimated that 110 million mines are spread in 64 counties world wide. Furthermore they estimate that landmines maim or kill between 1,000 to 2,000 people per month, most of whom are innocent non-combatants. Although mine action agencies resist the temptation to quantify the scale of the problem today, in September 1994 the UN Secretary-General stated that there were approximately 110 million world-wide and mine clearance alone would cost more than US $33 billion. In the following year the international community only allocated US $70 million for the clearance. After a decade of mine action the sector is not only better funded but clearance activities are taking place in tens of countries where mines and unexploded ordnance litter the country-side and threaten communities. Not least in South Sudan where comprehensive mine clearance programmes were virtually impossible before the government and the rebels started discussing peace and the end to the decades-long civil war. Recently the spot-light of the humanitarian mine action community has been focused on South Sudan where large areas of land area contaminated with landmines and Unexploded Ordnance (UXO). The Sudan Government and the southern rebel movement are currently running a first-ever joint operation on landmines which both side are responsible for laying since their wars began in 1983. The Director of the New Sudan Mine Action Directorate (NSMAD), an organisation managed by the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M), said they have started de-mining the areas under SPLM/A authority, while the Government of Sudan (GoS) is de-mining the Darfur region. NSMAD operational territory starts from Lokichoggio, Kenya - near the border - towards Kapoeta in eastern Equatoria, in southeastern Sudan. One South African based de-mining company, MECHAM, is working hand in hand with a Sudanese-created NGO, Operation Save Innocent Lives (OSIL). OSIL reported between September 1997 and November 2002 that their teams in Yei and Nimule had cleared an area of 5,176,363 square km and 1,284 miles of roads, destroying 3,376 anti-personnel mines in the process and 112,947 UXO. OSIL's annual report from April 2003 to March 2004 said that an area of 10,478,437 square km had been cleared in both the Nuba Mountains and in southern Sudan. More than 1,500 miles of roads have been cleared as well. However, a field co-ordinator for Humanitarian Mine Action [an OSIL department], Akech Athieu, told IRIN that it is difficult to determine the scope of the problem in terms of numbers of mines since there is no legitimate record of where or how mines were used. A mine awareness lecture organised by the local NGO Sudan Integrated Mine Action Service, in Rumbek, southern Sudan. Credit: Stevie Mann/UNICEF The OSIL-trained de-miners know they work in a dangerous context where their lives as deminers are also at risk. In the case of Manaseh Jigo, a retrained combat engineer, his leg was severed while on demining duty in the Blue Nile region of southern Sudan. "After treatment I felt I could not give up de-mining," Jigo said. Despite losing his leg, he is now working again near the town of Yei and in Eastern Equatoria. Jigo was trained by the NGO, Mines Advisory Group (MAG). The British-based MAG is responsible for training many of the local Sudanese de-miners working in the south. The training mission became larger when representatives from Khartoum joined the campaign in 1998 and 1999 as peace was being negotiated. In another incident, an OSIL truck hit an anti-tank mine near Kauda in the Nuba mountains, killing eight civilians and injuring a many others. MAG has tried to reduce the risk for civilians by creating a system of special signs and signals, which communicate messages, alerting the local people to the presence or absence of mines in particular areas. The mines awareness messages are introduced to the communities by community agents but is then meant to be passed on to local people through the community members themselves and, in turn, to returning refugees in the same area. The de-miners claim the process is particularly slow in southern Sudan because the areas are bushy and camouflaged with tall grass. The Nuba Mountains OSIL teams and MECHAM, which use sniffer dogs to find mines, are hampered by the geography and climate because of the heat and aridity of the areas. The adverse climate only allows them to work in the cooler periods of the day. Although the recorded numbers of accidents in Sudan do not compare with some of the more notorious mine-affected countries globally, landmines have been responsible for numerous deaths and injuries over the years. In 2003, the Landmine Monitor reported that six people were killed and 10 injured in Magwi County of southern Sudan and that one man had his leg blown off in Yei County, but it is generally regarded that many incidents go unreported. An International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) staff member told IRIN that due to the predominantly random and widespread way in which landmines have been used in the wars they almost always hit without warning. Getting help after an accident can be a serious problem in a land where even the most basic services and infrastructure are unavailable. Following an accident, "It can be a long time in some instances before anyone helps the victim of a landmine explosion. In remote areas where these incidents occur most, an injured person can be transported through informal means, without anesthetics, potentially worsening the injury level. Many clinics in southern Sudan lack ample blood supplies, antibiotics or surgical instruments" he explained. Beyond the fear of landmines to life and limb the residents of Yei and Morobo counties have called upon the de-mining agencies to help them clear their agricultural land as well. "The mines not only cause human destruction, they also turn land infertile and render it dangerous," a manager from OSIL told IRIN. Local residents are reported as asking, "We are being encouraged to use the land, but how can we risk it?" In 1997,as tens of countries queued to sign the new and ground-breaking Mine Ban Treaty Sudan was one of the early signatories committing themselves to strict stipulations prohibiting the production, transfer, sale and use of mines. However, there has been some disagreement as to how closely the Government of Sudan has respected the articles of the Treaty. "I am surprised to hear that Sudan also signed the treaty in 1997, while in 2002 government forces laid 13,500 mines in Lopon, in eastern Equatoria when it captured it from the SPLA," claimed OSIL's Akech while talking to IRIN. The government and the rebel parties have been accusing each other of using mines. The rebels also accuse the government of maintaining stockpiles of mines. The government of Sudan (GoS) denies having stockpile of landmines and reported that the few it did have, were for practice use only, according to Landmine Monitor, a publication of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. In late November 2004 Nairobi will host a Review Summit on a 'Mine-Free World' marking the watershed five-year mark following the 'entry into force' of the Treaty itself. Those organising the summit, which is set to attract heads of state and senior diplomats from over 150 nations, hope the international community will re-commit themselves to ridding the world of the scourge of landmines. Aleu Ayieny Aleu, the director of New Sudan Mine Action Directorate (NSMAD), will represent southern Sudan in the summit.