Demining project for south Sudan

The Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) organisation has launched an assessment into the extent of the minefields created by both sides during Sudan’s 20-year conflict with a view to starting a comprehensive clean-up programme after the peace deal is signed. Mach Maika, NPA coordinator for Yei and Juba counties in the extreme south of the country, told IRIN: “This is the first time NPA is involved in demining. It will be the first comprehensive demining programme for the region to be launched since the war started.” The programme is to be launched in cooperation with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and Operation Save Innocent Lives (OSIL) – a local NGO formed after the SPLM guerrillas captured Yei town in 1997. But it is as yet unclear how such a programme will be funded. “As it stands we don’t have funding for a systematic programme of mine elimination – we do things on immediate requests,” Felix Yugga of OSIL told IRIN. “This is a hard thing. It costs up to US$1000 to defuse one mine”. He described the challenges facing the demining project as “massive”. "The contested areas will be the real challenge," he said. "Both sides laid thousands of mines in the no-man’s land around Juba, Lainya, Kapoeta and Lafon. In between these places is the densest minefield in Sudan, perhaps in Africa. There could be hundreds of thousands.” The SPLA commander in charge of Yei and Juba counties, Paul Mac, told IRIN the rebel movement’s administration had met do discuss the way forward on landmines. "We’ve procured equipment for demining," he said. "As soon as we sign a total ceasefire, we can remove the mines and we will sign a treaty to that effect.” Mach Maika said the NPA’s work was made more difficult by the fact that SPLA landmines were not mapped. “Both sides have mined heavily but the SPLA are especially poor at keeping records," he said. "They are much better at detecting enemy mines than they are at keeping track of where their own are.” He said this was because many of the mine layers were killed before they had a chance to report back to SPLA headquarters. Another reason, he said, was that often there was simply no paper available for mapping.