Commitment to the Convention on Cluster Munitions

Policy

The Republic of Chad signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008 and ratified on 26 March 2013. The convention enters into force for Chad on 1 September 2013.

In April 2013, government officials informed the CMC that the government was discussing with the ICRC and others about possible national legislation to implement the convention’s provisions.[1]

Chad’s initial Article 7 report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions is due by 28 February 2014.

Chad provided regular updates throughout its ratification of the convention.[2] The parliament approved ratification of the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 29 March 2012.[3] At the Third Meeting of States Parties in Oslo in September 2012, Chad announced that the ratification instrument had been sent to the president for signature.[4] Chad deposited the instrument on 26 March 2013, becoming the 80^th State Party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Chad actively participated in the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions and supported a comprehensive ban on cluster munitions.[5]

Chad continued to engage in the work of the convention in 2012 and the first half of 2013. At the Third Meeting of States Parties it gave an update on ratification and called for assistance for demining and stockpile management.[6] Chad participated in the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva in April 2013, where it announced the completion of ratification and repeated its request for international cooperation and assistance to clear contaminated areas.[7] Chad also attended a regional meeting on universalization of the convention in Lomé, Togo in May 2013.

Chad expressed support for universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions at the 2013 intersessional meetings, where government representatives informed the CMC of the government’s intent to actively encourage other African states not yet party to the convention to join.[8]

At the regional meeting in April 2013, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official informed the CMC that Chad encourages all African countries that have yet to sign and ratify the convention to do so.[9] In September 2013, a government official told the CMC that Chadian officials were doing everything possible to promote the convention, including promoting it with neighboring countries.[10]

Chad has not made a national statement to express concern at Syria’s cluster munition use, but it endorsed the regional meeting’s Lomé Strategy on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which expresses “grave concern over the recent and on-going use of cluster munitions” and calls for the immediate end to the use of these weapons.[11] Chad also voted in favor of a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on 15 May 2013 that strongly condemned “the use by the Syrian authorities of...cluster munitions.”[12]

Chad is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Chad is not known to have used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.

French aircraft dropped cluster munitions on a Libyan airfield inside Chad at Wadi Doum during the 1986–1987 conflict. Libyan forces used AO-1SCh and PTAB-2.5 submunitions.

In September 2012, Chad stated that the extent to which its territory is contaminated by cluster munition remnants is not precisely known, but it was evident the weapons had been used in the Fada region and there is a strong likelihood that they were used in other parts of the north. Chad said that the Tibesti region in the northwest was being surveyed to determine the extent of the contamination.[13]

In April 2012, a Chadian official—in response to questions about Libyan arms stockpiles that were left unsecured during the 2011 Libyan conflict—informed the Monitor that there have been no transfers of cluster munitions from Libya to Chad.[14]

Contamination and Impact

The Republic of Chad is contaminated by mines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) resulting from the 1973 Libyan invasion and 30 years of internal conflict, but the precise extent of this contamination still remains to be quantified.[1]

The mine action program since 2008 has suffered from a lack of international funding, weak government oversight, and mismanagement within the National Demining Center (Centre National de Deminage, CND) resulting in no demining until October 2012 when the European Union provided funding to the Mines Advisory Group (MAG).[2]

Landmines and ERW are obstacles to safe access to housing, roads, pastures, water points, and mining, particularly in the north in the Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti region.[3] The Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti region is in northern Chad in the Sahara Desert and extends into the Sahel.[4]

Mines

Earlier estimates of 670km² or more of suspected hazardous areas outside the northern Tibesti region, identified as a result of a 1999–2001 Landmine Impact Survey[5] and subsequent survey and clearance, have since been revised. The MAG survey completed in 2012 and funded by Japan and UNDP, which included part of the Tibesti region, identified 110 confirmed hazardous areas (CHAs) covering 58km² in three regions in northern Chad. However, more contaminated area could be identified in the Tibesti region bordering Libya and the Moyen Chari region in the south on the border with the Central African Republic, as both areas need further surveys.[6]

Contaminated mined area as of March 2013[7]

Cluster munition remnants

Cluster munition remnants have been found in Chad. Following the end of the conflict with Libya in 1987, unexploded submunitions and cluster munition containers were found in the three northern provinces, in the Biltine department in Wadi Fira region (northeastern Chad), and east of the capital, N’Djamena.[8] MAG found unexploded Soviet antitank PETAB-1.5 submunitions during survey in an area close to Faya Largeau.[9] In the east of Chad, however, no submunitions were cleared by MineTech, the demining contractor for the UN Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT).[10]

At the signing conference of the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008, the representative of Chad spoke of “vast swathes of territory” contaminated with “mines and UXO [unexploded ordnance] (munitions and submunitions).”[11] However, since then no large amounts of cluster submunitions have been found.

Explosive Remnants of War

The MAG survey also identified 181 UXO sites measuring 3.1km² in nine regions, of which almost 70% are located in the three northern regions where the remaining mined area is located.

Number and area of ERW sites as of March 2013[12]

Mine Action Program

Key institutions and operators

The Steering Committee of the HCND, which is chaired by the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Economy and Cooperation, is responsible for mine action regulation, policy, and resource mobilization.

All mine action operations are coordinated by the CND, whose work is overseen by a Steering Committee. In 2012, management problems at the CND were identified resulting in the dismissal of the Director and firing of hundreds of employees. CND reduced its personnel from 720 to 320.[13] CND demining operations have also been plagued with poor equipment and a lack of funding.[14]

In May 2013, the government of Chad approved a new strategic mine action plan for 2013–2017.[15]

In 2012, with support from UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS), the United States military trained 60 deminers from CND.[16] UNMAS suspended assistance to Chad in 2012 due to a lack of funding.[17]

The UNDP technical advisor to Chad left his post at the end of May 2013 when his contract expired.[18] As of September 2013, no replacement has been announced, and it was uncertain if the government of Chad and UNDP planned to recruit an international technical advisor.

Land Release

Release of mined areas has fallen significantly in recent years in Chad, with battle area clearance (BAC) continuing intermittently. MAG ceased clearance operations in 2009 but deployed again for survey and clearance in June 2010.[19] Mine clearance in the Faya region supported by UNMAS, which started in 2011, ended in May 2012 for lack of funding. Clearance in Tibesti, though, started at the end of April 2012.[20] Chad has not submitted an Article 7 report since 2010.

Survey in 2012

In March 2013, MAG reported it had completed technical and non-technical surveys in the northern and eastern parts of Chad. MAG marked 49.88km² of contaminated area and cleared 837,173m² of dangerous areas while destroying 238 antipersonnel/antitank mines and 8,813 UXO. MAG also identified 55 new dangerous areas, of which they cleared 35.[21]

Mine clearance

Demining operations started in August 2000 but stopped at the end of December 2005 due to lack of funding. There has since been only intermittent clearance of mined areas and much of it poorly documented. In 2009, with funding from Libya CND found 22 antipersonnel and nine antivehicle mines in Ounianga Kebbir in Ennedi over a 4km2 area. In early 2010, the Chadian government funded demining operations in Fada, also in the Ennedi region. Additionally, in 2009–2010 the CND conducted clearance (with funding from Libya according to CND) in Wadi Doum, the site of a Libyan air base that was bombed by the France in 1986.[22] Reportedly there is a mined area 47km long in Wadi Doum.[23] From July 2012 to May 2013, MAG removed and destroyed 1,419 mines and UXO while clearing 17,390m2 of mined area and conducting BAC on 196,576m2.[24]

Compliance with Article 5 of the Mine Ban Treaty

Under Article 5 of the Mine Ban Treaty (and in accordance with the Extension Requests granted in 2008 and 2010), Chad is formally required to destroy all antipersonnel mines in mined areas under its jurisdiction or control as soon as possible, but not later than 1 January 2014. On 2 May 2013, Chad submitted a third Extension Request asking for an additional five years to 2019.

Chad’s 2008 Extension Request was for an initial 14-month period to enable a new survey of contamination to take place—not including the Tibesti region. As the Analysing Group’s review of that extension request stated, “Chad is unable to provide an accounting of the areas now considered to be no longer dangerous relative to those areas originally suspected of being dangerous.”[25]

At the Ninth Meeting of States Parties, which approved the first request, the ICBL welcomed Chad’s approach to requesting a short amount of time to conduct the necessary surveys to clearly determine the remaining contaminated area. The ICBL cautioned, however, that the Tibesti region will need to be cleared before Chad can declare completion of Article 5 obligations, and the lack of a plan to survey the area would make it hard for Chad to draft a final country-wide clearance plan.

A second Extension Request was submitted on 20 September 2010, seeking an additional three years to conduct the survey. In granting the request, the Tenth Meeting of States Parties noted that “as Chad had not complied with the commitment it had made, as recorded by the Ninth Meeting of the States Parties, to garner an understanding of the true remaining extent of the challenge and to develop plans accordingly that precisely project the amount of time that will be required to complete Article 5 implementation, it would appear that Chad does not possess much more knowledge now than it did in 2008 to develop a plan to meet its Article 5 obligations.”[26]

In 2012, the survey was completed, and on 2 May 2013 Chad submitted a third Extension Request and asked for an additional five years until 2019. [27]

Compliance with Article 4 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions

Under Article 4 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Chad is required to destroy all cluster munition remnants in areas under its jurisdiction or control as soon as possible but not later than 1 September 2022.

Summary action points based on 2012 findings­

·         Increased services are needed in all areas of victim assistance including physical rehabilitation and employment.

·         There is an acute need for improved facilities and professional capacity in the rehabilitation sector. The number of patients receiving prosthetic devices decreased by 40% due to difficulties in production during the first half of 2012.

·         Although limited, donor funding is making an impact that could be significantly increased; for example, Chad reported allocating funding from Australia to strengthen existing rehabilitation centers with the continued engagement of the ICRC.

Victim assistance commitments

Chad is responsible for a significant number of landmine survivors, cluster munition victims and survivors of other ERW who are in need. Chad has made commitments to provide victim assistance through the Mine Ban Treaty and has victim assistance obligations under the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Casualties

Casualties overview

The Monitor recorded at least 15 mine/ERW casualties in Chad; 13 of them were children.[1] However, given the lack of a national data collection and reporting systems, it is expected that there were a larger number of new casualties that were unreported. In 2011, there were 34 casualties reported and 28 in 2010.[2] The National Demining Center (Centre National de Déminage, CND) reported 44 new mine/ERW casualties (13 killed and 31 injured) between 2010 and 2012 but did not provide differentiated data for each year.[3] However, the total figures were inconsistent with previous CND reports of annual casualty rates[4] and Monitor casualty data.[5]

At least 2,879 mine/ERW casualties had been identified by the end of 2012: 1,154 people were killed, another 1,527 injured, and 198 unknown.[6]

The number of casualties caused by cluster munition remnants or the use of cluster munitions in Chad remained unknown due to a lack of detailed and comprehensive data collection.[7]

Victim Assistance

The total number of mine/ERW survivors in Chad is not known, though there were thought to be more than 1,600.[8] Between 1998 and 2012, the CND estimated that there were at least 2,834 survivors and family members of people killed by mines/ERW registered in Chad but recognized that this data was not complete.[9]

Victim assistance since 1999

Services for mine/ERW survivors in Chad have been hampered by intermittent internal conflict and cross-border conflicts, as well as serious under-funding, through to 2012. Data on mine/ERW casualties is not adequate for use; information on the needs of survivors was not available. Most services were provided by the ICRC and NGOs. An overall need to establish services and capacities outside the capital N’Djamena remained; especially in remote and affected areas, such as the northern part of the country.

As of 2012, to access most services many survivors still needed to be transferred to N’Djamena, where the existing facilities were, however, few and inadequate in view of the needs. Rehabilitation was limited to just two centers and those services were not free of charge unless covered by the ICRC, which also continued to provide a referral system and local staff training. There was a persistent lack of physiotherapists and trained service providers; none worked in mine-affected areas. Psychosocial support, vocational training and economic reintegration opportunities for survivors and persons with disabilities were extremely limited; the situation was exacerbated by widespread societal discrimination against them. Legislation addressing persons with disabilities was not adequately enforced. Government attention to victim assistance increased through 2010 and 2011 with the development of the National Action Plan on Victim Assistance, which was adopted in May 2012. However, few initiatives were undertaken in 2012 to implement this action plan.[10]

There were no significant changes in the accessibility, availability, or quality of victim assistance services in Chad in 2012. The government operated few education, employment, and rehabilitation programs for persons with disabilities.

Assessing victim assistance needs

In 2012, no needs assessments were made in Chad. The CND country-wide mapping study of all mine/ERW survivors announced in 2011 as part of the implementation of the newly adopted National Action Plan on Victim Assistance did not appear to have been completed as planned; a census of mine victims and assessment of their needs was identified as a priority of the implementation strategy of the action plan presented by the CND at the Twelfth meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty in December 2012.[11]

Victim assistance coordination[12]

This first National Plan of Action on Victim Assistance was adopted in May 2012, to be implemented from 2012–2014.[13] The plan recognizes the principle of non-discrimination between mine/ERW victims and other victims and persons with disabilities.[14] The plan of action identifies five key objectives:

1.      Contact each survivor through organizations of mine/ERW victims and disabled persons’ organizations (DPOs) and assess their needs and the best way to respond.

2.      Identify and reinforce community networks (including DPOs).

3.      Map and improve victim assistance activities.

4.      Develop a network of actors within the communities to provide psychological support and provide information on available services to victims.

5.      Identify and train all service providers in affected regions on victim assistance and improve accessibility to services in all parts of the country.[15]

The objectives of the National Plan of Action on Victim Assistance 2012–1014 have also been included in the Strategic Mine Action Plan 2013–2017, which was developed in 2012.[16]

In 2012, the CND organized two workshops in collaboration with other stakeholders. In January, a three-day workshop focused on synergies of activities for the rights of persons with disabilities. In November, a mine action planning workshop was organized, which provided follow up to the Victim Assistance Plan of Action adopted earlier in the year. In addition, towards the end of 2012 the CND worked to create a country-wide network of rehabilitation actors in Chad.[17] Members of this network include representatives of the CND, international organizations such as UNICEF, the ICRC, the two rehabilitation centers, and specialists, as well as mine survivors and other DPOs.[18]

Implementation of the draft action plan had been delayed due to the ongoing problems with victim assistance, including financial difficulties, the distance of rehabilitation centers from affected areas, and a lack of international technical assistance. However, in 2012 Chad reported allocating funding from the Australian Government to victim assistance, which with the continued engagement of ICRC, was expected to strengthen existing rehabilitation centers, especially the Kabalaye Physical Rehabilitation Center (Centre d’Appareillage et de Rééducation de Kabalaye, CARK).[19]

The Ministry of Social Affairs, National Solidarity and Family is responsible for protecting the rights of people with disabilities, including access to rehabilitation services.[20]

Chad provided updates on progress and challenges for victim assistance at the Convention on Cluster Munition and Mine Ban Treaty intersessional meetings in Geneva in April and May 2012 and the Twelfth Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty in Geneva in December 2012.[21] In January 2013, Chad submitted its first Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 Report since 2010. Form J provided an overview of victims of mine/ERW over the years 2010 to 2012 and recognized that little had been done in the past on victim assistance due to lack of funding.[22]

Inclusion and participation in victim assistance

In 2012, two mine/ERW victims were working in the CARK as assistant technicians in prosthetics production. The ICRC also reported working closely with survivor associations, especially in affected areas, to gather information and enhance referrals to rehabilitation centers.[23] Survivors did not participate in international meetings of the Mine Ban Treaty or Convention on Cluster Munitions as part of their country’s delegation in 2012.

Service accessibility and effectiveness

Victim assistance activities[24]

Emergency and continuing medical care

In 2012, there was relative stability during the year with the end of armed conflict that had been ongoing since 2010. In response, the ICRC scaled back its emergency activities to focus mainly on providing surgical care in the east and treatment to amputees throughout the country.[25] An ICRC surgical team at the Abéché Regional Hospital continued to treat emergency cases from across eastern Chad and also provided materials and supplies. In order to increase access to treatment, destitute casualties had their surgical costs covered. However, most surgical cases were unrelated to armed conflict.[26]

Physical rehabilitation, including prosthetics

In 2012, access to rehabilitation remained difficult for most of those in need. Rehabilitation services were only available in six of the 23 regions in Chad. Technical difficulties in the production of prosthetics during the first semester of 2012 led to an overall 40% decrease in the number of patients who received prosthetics.[27] The main causes included the lack of financial support from the social system to cover the cost of rehabilitation treatment, the lack of facilities and professionals, and the burden of the cost of transport when it was available.[28] There was no direct involvement by the government in physical rehabilitation and patients had to pay for services.[29]

In 2012, the ICRC reported that, although the exact number of people with disabilities in need of physical rehabilitation services is unknown, it was obvious that the two functioning centers do not have the infrastructure and human resources capacity to meet existing needs. It supported regular training for local staff of rehabilitation centers. The presence of an expatriate physiotherapist allowed for improvements in the quality of services provided at the CARK and MNDP.[30]

The ICRC continued to provide financial and logistical assistance to survivors to increase access to rehabilitation services by allowing survivors living in remote areas, especially from the northern part of the country, to come to N’Djamena’s rehabilitation centers. The ICRC paid for transportation to the capital and also covered physical rehabilitation costs including prostheses and physiotherapy services. Following the demolition of the AEHPT-run accommodation center in August 2010 which had been used by the ICRC for patients coming from outside the capital,[31] only a limited number of beneficiaries with particular difficulties, especially children and those without any family members in N’Djamena, were provided with accommodation and food during their rehabilitation.[32] Throughout 2012, the ICRC supported an assessment of the possibilities for the CARK to become more autonomous and less dependent on the ICRC in the future. The ICRC advocated for the Ministry for Health to increase public funding for the production of prosthetics at the CARK and MNDP. It also conducted activities to identify additional international partners.[33]

Laws and policies

The Ministry of the Civil Service adopted a recruiting policy inclusive of persons with disabilities in 2012.[34] A law adopted in 2007 protecting the rights of persons with disabilities remained inoperative by the end of 2012, pending the passing of a decree to make it enforceable.[35] No legislation or programs exist to ensure access to buildings for persons with disabilities.[36]

Chad signed the CRPD in September 2012.

Since 2008, the government of the Republic of Chad has contributed almost US$12 million to its mine action program, including $3.13 million in 2012, its largest ever reported contribution.[1]

In 2012, Chad received $3.6 million in international assistance, including €2.5 million ($3.2 million) from the European Union (EU). Other donors included Finland and Switzerland.

International contributions: 2012[2]

Summary of contributions: 2008–2012[3]