Mine ban policy overview

After a popular revolution caused the collapse of the government led by Hosni Mubarak in February 2011, the country was ruled by a military council, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. Elections to select a new parliament took place in November 2011.[1] Mohammed Morsi was elected president on 24 June 2012 and deposed by a military coup a year later, on 3 July 2013.

Policy

The Arab Republic of Egypt has not acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty. Egypt has often stated its reasons for opposing the treaty, including that antipersonnel landmines are seen as a key means for securing its borders and that responsibility for clearance is not assigned in the treaty to those who laid the mines in the past.[2] In December 2012, Egypt objected to the “particularly imbalanced nature of that instrument, which was developed and concluded outside the framework of the United Nations.”[3]

Egypt participated as an observer in the Twelfth Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty in Geneva in December 2012, but did not attend the intersessional Standing Committee meetings in May 2013.

Egypt signed the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) in 1981 but never ratified it. It attended, as an observer, the Fourteenth Annual Conference of State Parties to CCW Amended Protocol II on landmines in November 2012.

In a February 2013 letter to Egypt’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mohamed Kamel Amr, Human Rights Watch urged the new government to reconsider its stance on antipersonnel mines and undertake an interdepartmental review of the policy on joining the Mine Ban Treaty that has prevailed so far. No reply had been received as of September 2013.

Production, transfer, stockpiling, and use

Egypt has stated that it stopped production of antipersonnel mines in 1988 and stopped exports in 1984.[4]

At the First Review Conference of the Mine Ban Treaty in December 2004, Egypt’s Deputy Assistant Foreign Minister stated that “the Egyptian government has imposed a moratorium on all export and production activities related to anti-personnel mines.”[5] This was the first time that Egypt publicly and officially announced a moratorium on production.[6] The Monitor is not aware of any official decrees or laws to implement permanent prohibitions on production or export of antipersonnel mines. In December 2012, Egypt said that it “imposed a moratorium on its capacity to produce and export landmines in 1980.”[7]

Egypt is believed to have a large stockpile of antipersonnel mines, but no details are available on the size and composition of the stockpile, as it is considered a state secret.

In July 2012, a retired military engineer, General Mohamed Khater, who was formerly in charge of mine clearance in the engineering corps, reportedly stated that the Egyptian Armed Forces laid a minefield in 2011 on the country’s border with Libya, presumably when forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi lost control of the border to anti-Gaddafi resistance fighters.[8] The Monitor has not been able to verify this claim.[9]

Policy

The Arab Republic of Egypt has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Since assuming office in June 2014, the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has not made any public statements regarding Egypt’s position on joining the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

In its last statement on the matter in September 2011, Egypt informed States Parties that it “supports all efforts aimed at protecting civilians and supporting victims of cluster munitions” but asserted that the convention’s negotiation “outside the framework of the UN will produce a deficient legal system that will be abused to use cluster munitions.” Egypt repeated its long-held arguments that the Convention on Cluster Munitions “will not hold states which are using cluster munitions responsible for their acts, or will not hold them to account for clearing contaminated areas.”[1]

When the Convention on Cluster Munitions entered into force on 1 August 2010, Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement expressing its hope that these and other concerns would be addressed by the convention’s First Review Conference in 2015.[2]

Egypt participated in the Oslo Process that created the convention and engaged in the negotiations in Dublin in May 2008 as an observer but did not attend the Oslo Signing Conference in December 2008.[3] Despite its engagement, in October 2008 Egypt expressed concern with both the “substantive content” of the convention and “the process which led to its conclusion outside the framework of the United Nations.”[4]

Egypt has participated in some meetings related to the Convention on Cluster Munitions since 2008. It participated as an observer in the convention’s Second Meeting of States Parties in Beirut, Lebanon in September 2011 and attended intersessional meetings of the convention in Geneva in 2011 and 2013 but not those held in April 2014.

Egypt has voted in favor of UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions condemning the Syrian government’s use of cluster munitions, including Resolution 68/182 on 18 December 2013, which expressed “outrage” at “continued widespread and systematic gross violations of human rights…including those involving the use of…cluster munitions.”[5]

Egypt is not party to the Mine Ban Treaty. Egypt signed the Convention on Conventional Weapons in 1981 but has never ratified it or any of its protocols.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Egypt has said that it has never used cluster munitions.[6] But it is a producer, stockpiler, importer, and exporter of the weapon. Evidence has emerged that indicates Egypt exported or otherwise transferred cluster munitions to Syria in the past, most likely before the current conflict.[7]

In December 2012, the Syrian government’s first known use of ground-based cluster munitions was documented, including the use of 122mm cluster munition rockets bearing the markings of the SAKR Factory for Developed Industries and the Egyptian state-owned Arab Organization for Industrialization.[8] The SAKR Factory for Developed Industries produces two types of 122mm surface-to-surface rockets: the SAKR-18 and SAKR-36, containing 72 and 98 dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) submunitions, respectively.[9]

In January 2013, officials of then-President Mohamed Morsi deferred media questions concerning Syrian government use of Egyptian-made cluster munitions, to the armed forces.[10] According to local media, retired Major-General Dr. Mahmoud Khalaf, an advisor at Nasser Higher Military Academy, denied that Egypt had manufactured “this kind of unlawful weapon” and stressed Egypt’s commitment to “international conventions.”[11]

The Helipolis Company for Chemical Industries produces 122mm and 130mm artillery projectiles, which contain 18 and 28 DPICM submunitions, respectively.[12]

Egypt has also imported a significant number of cluster munitions, primarily from the United States (US). The US provided at least 760 CBU-87 cluster bombs to Egypt as part of a foreign military sales program in the early 1990s.[13] Lockheed Martin Corporation was awarded a US$36 million contract to produce 485 M26A1 Extended Range Multiple Launch Rocket System rockets for Egypt in November 1991.[14] Between 1970 and 1995, the US also supplied Egypt with 1,300 Rockeye cluster bombs.[15]

Additionally, Jane’s Information Group notes that KMG-U dispensers of Soviet-origin are in service for Egypt’s aircraft.[16]

Contamination and Impact

The Arab Republic of Egypt is contaminated with mines and explosive remnants of war (ERW), especially unexplored ordnance (UXO) from World War II. Most of the battles took place in the area between the Quattara depression and Alamein at the Mediterranean coast. Other affected areas lie around the city of Marsa Matrouh and at Sallum near the Libyan border.

The precise extent of contamination remains unknown and no credible estimate for mine contamination has yet been provided. An April 2009 assessment by the UN Mine Action Team (UNMAT) cautioned that accumulated data needed to be carefully analyzed in order to not misrepresent the overall mine problem as well as to avoid reporting areas for demining that had already been cleared.[1]

In August 2010, the Executive Secretariat for the Demining and Development of the North West Coast (Executive Secretariat) reported to donors than the army had destroyed 2.9 million mines while clearing 38km² in five areas, leaving “more than 16 million mines” covering an estimated area of 248km².[2] This appears to be confusing mines and UXO. A government statement reported the existence of a further 5.5 million “mines” in the Sinai and the Eastern Desert.[3]

The government of Egypt has planned to link mine clearance and development of the northwest coast area. Most projects will require demining support before starting. Population movement and population increases have put increased pressure on land usage, placing an ever-growing number of people close to mined areas. Irrigation projects, a priority for Egypt, have experienced delays because of the need to clear mines and UXO.

Mine Action Program

There does not appear to be a functioning mine action program in Egypt, although nominally an Executive Secretariat has been created at the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation to serve as a coordination unit between civilian Egyptian government departments, the military, and civil society, with the support of UNDP in a project due to end in 2014.[4]

All clearance to date has been performed by the Egyptian Army. No results have been publicly reported over recent years.

In April 2013, a contract was agreed for Egypt to purchase an Armtrac 400 mine-clearance vehicle from the United Kingdom. The contract is said to be worth US$1.2 million.[5]

Casualties Overview

In 2013, the Monitor identified 69 mine/explosive remnants of war (ERW) casualties in Egypt. All of the casualties were male; civilian casualties included 28 men and nine boys. Of the total, 37 casualties were civilians and 32 were military.[1]

The 69 casualties identified in 2013 represented a significant increase from the 46 mine/ERW casualties recorded in Egypt in 2012, when only one military casualty was recorded.[2]

In 2013, at least two incidents took place near the Libyan border in the Matruh governorate and involved migrants, one person from Syria and a Sudanese national, having crossed the border illegally.[3] Furthermore, the number of casualties having occurred in the Sinai region (North and South Sinai) has greatly increased compared to previous years, with 33 casualties in 2013 as opposed to five in 2012 and two in 2011. Most of these casualties were military and 69% of all military casualties occurred in the Sinai region.

Several sources have estimated the total number of known casualties to be around 8,000. However, the period of data collection for these statistics is not reported. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported in 2006 that there had been 8,313 mine casualties (696 people killed; 7,617 injured; 5,017 were civilians) in the Western Desert since 1982.[4] Almost identical statistics were reported in 1998, but for the period 1945–1996.[5]

Victim Assistance

In 2010, there were estimated to be at least 900 mine/ERW survivors in Egypt.[6] By the end of 2010, detailed information had been collected on 686 survivors in the Matruh governorate.[7] This database was believed to include information on 91–95% of all mine/ERW survivors in the governorate.[8] No data was available on survivors based outside of Matruh.

Victim assistance coordination[9]

The National Committee technically provides oversight for all mine action activities undertaken by the Executive Secretariat, including victim assistance. These activities are restricted to the Matruh governorate; there is no victim assistance coordination for the rest of Egypt. The committee is comprised of representatives from 20 ministries, local officials from four governorates, and from several NGOs. Among the objectives of the Executive Secretariat’s second phase of its activities, which started in 2010, are to “support landmine victims of the north west coast,” to “complete and consistently update Victims Database [sic]” and to “mobilize more resources and expand victim assistance activities.”[10] The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Social Solidarity shared responsibility for protecting the rights of all persons with disabilities in Egypt.[11]

Service accessibility and effectiveness

Victim assistance activities[12]

There were no reported changes in the accessibility or quality of victim assistance services for mine/ERW survivors in 2013.[13]

In 2013, the ITF Enhancing Human Security did not continue its national rehabilitation sector capacity-building project launched in 2011 which had provided rehabilitation for Egyptian victims of conflict at facilities in Slovenia.[14]

In 2013, UNDP, in partnership with the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation and the Ministry of Defense, launched the second phase of its pilot project to support the development of the North West Coast and Inland Desert which included mine risk education and victim assistance activities. Through this project, technical assistance was provided to four NGOs targeting victims of mine incidents. The NGOs implemented income-generation activities as well as networking and advocacy activities, including financial management, project management, strategic planning, and managing volunteers. UNDP reported that all loan installments due to date were successfully repaid by beneficiaries.[15] Local consultation prompted the project to launch a microcredit loan program focusing on women, benefiting a total number of a 100 female mine victims and female relatives of mine victims.[16]

No information was available on psychological or social support for mine/ERW survivors in 2013. However, the UNDP discerned that survivors often expressed feelings publically, including through the media, that they “continue to pay the price of a war they were never party to;” the UNDP also noted the need for ongoing participatory dialogue and for building and maintaining relationships with the Bedouin community to develop the capacities of survivors in identifying and resolving grievances by negotiation. It also asserted the need for the mine action program to develop flexibility in recognizing the concerns of the community “in a manner which still allows effective implementation of project activities.”[17]

Egypt had no legislation prohibiting discrimination against persons with disabilities in education, access to healthcare, or the provision of other state services, nor are there laws mandating access to buildings or transportation; discrimination remained widespread.[18]

Egypt ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) on 14 April 2008.

The mine action program in the Arab Republic of Egypt has been stalled since 2009 following the completion of phase I. The start of phase II covering 2011–2015 was supposed to expand mine clearance operations, facilitate development in the region, strengthen the Executive Secretariat, and mobilize more resources; however, this was again delayed in 2012 due to lack of funding and political events in Egypt.[1]

Nonetheless, Germany, New Zealand, and Slovenia all reported contributions to Egypt’s mine action program in 2012. Slovenia’s contribution through the ITF (International Trust Fund)  Enhancing Human Security went towards providing rehabilitation services to four children at the University Rehabilitation Institute in Ljubljana who were injured during political events in Egypt in January and February 2011.[2]

In 2011 and 2012 the government of Egypt contributed two million pounds (2011; $335,000) (2012: $327,000) to its mine action program.[3]

International contributions: 2012[4]

Summary of contributions: 2008–2012[5]

            N/R = not reported