Sierra Leone

Last Updated: 28 October 2011

Mine Ban Policy

The Republic of Sierra Leone signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 29 July 1998 and ratified it on 25 April 2001, becoming a State Party on 1 October 2001. Sierra Leone has not produced or exported antipersonnel mines. Limited quantities of mines were used in various civil conflicts. Sierra Leone has not enacted new legislation specifically to implement the Mine Ban Treaty. On 9 February 2004, Sierra Leone submitted its initial Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 report, due 20 March 2002, but has not submitted subsequent reports.

Sierra Leone destroyed its stockpile of between 956 and 959 antipersonnel mines (the exact number was not confirmed) on 11 February 2003.

Sierra Leone did not attend any Mine Ban Treaty meetings in 2010 or the first half of 2011.

Sierra Leone is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons and its Amended Protocol II on landmines and Protocol V on explosive remnants of war.  

There are no known mined areas but Sierra Leone has residual unexploded ordnance contamination.

 


Last Updated: 23 August 2014

Cluster Munition Ban Policy

Policy

The Republic of Sierra Leone signed and ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Oslo on 3 December 2008. It was among the first 30 ratifications that triggered entry into force of the convention on 1 August 2010.

Sierra Leone has not declared any national implementation measures, but it is believed to be considering preparing draft implementing legislation specific to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[1] In 2011, Sierra Leone announced that it was working to adopt comprehensive national legislation “prohibiting future possession, purchase, and use of cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians.”[2] In May 2013, an official said that draft implementation legislation had been prepared using model legislation provided by the ICRC.[3]

Sierra Leone submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 25 January 2011 but, as of 28 June 2014, had not provided any of the updated reports required by 30 April each year, including the one due in 2014.[4]

Sierra Leone participated in the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions and advocated for a strong convention text during the formal negotiations in Dublin in May 2008.[5]

Sierra Leone has continued to engage in the work of the Convention on Cluster Munitions since 2008. It participated in the convention’s Meeting of States Parties in 2010, 2011, and the Fourth Meeting of States Parties in Lusaka, Zambia in September 2013. Sierra Leone has never attended the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva, such as those held in April 2014. Sierra Leone participated in a regional meeting of the convention in Lomé, Togo in May 2013.

Sierra Leone voted in favor of UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 68/182 on 18 December 2013 which expressed “outrage” at the Syrian government’s “continued widespread and systematic gross violations of human rights…including those involving the use of…cluster munitions.”[6] Previously, in May 2013, Sierra Leone said it remains “deeply concerned that Cluster Munitions continue to be used by some countries that are not party to the Convention, causing untold suffering to innocent civilians” and condemned “in the strongest terms the previous, recent and any further use” of cluster munitions.[7]

Sierra Leone has not yet provided its views on certain important issues related to interpretation and implementation of the convention, including the prohibition on transit, the prohibition on assistance during joint military operations with states not party that may use cluster munitions, the prohibition on foreign stockpiling of cluster munitions, and the prohibition on investment in production of cluster munitions.

Sierra Leone is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is also party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Sierra Leone has stated several times that it has never used, produced, stockpiled, or transferred cluster munitions.[8]

Sierra Leone has reported that cluster munitions were stockpiled in the country during the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) intervention in 1998 and 1999.[9] According to sources close to the Sierra Leonean military, in 1997 Nigerian forces operating as ECOMOG peacekeepers dropped two cluster bombs on Lokosama, near Port Loko. ECOMOG Force Commander General Victor Malu denied these reports.[10] According to media reports, Nigerian ECOMOG peacekeepers used French-produced BLG-66 Belouga cluster bombs in an attack on the eastern town of Kenema in Sierra Leone in 1997.[11]

In May 2012, Sierra Leone reaffirmed these allegations of cluster munition use.[12] In September 2012, Nigeria again denied the cluster munition use.[13]

Sierra Leone has reported that an unknown quantity of M42, M46, and M77 submunitions were destroyed by open detonation in 2001 at Aberdeen Beach near Freetown by an explosive ordnance disposal team from the United Kingdom.[14]

 



[1] Forms A stated “N/A” for not applicable. Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 7 Report, Form A, 25 January 2011.

[2] Statement of Sierra Leone, Convention on Cluster Munitions Second Meeting of States Parties, Beirut, 14 September 2011.

[3] CMC meeting with Gen. Modibo Lymon (retired), Commissioner, Sierra Leone National Commission on Small Arms, in Lomé, 22 May 2013. Notes by the CMC. The National Committee for the Implementation of International Humanitarian Law is responsible for drafting Sierra Leone’s implementation legislation. Statement of Sierra Leone, Accra Regional Conference on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Accra, 28 May 2012.

[4] The report covers the period from 27 January 2011 to 30 April 2012. Only Forms A, B, and C were completed with “N/A” or not applicable.

[5] For details on Sierra Leone’s policy and practice regarding cluster munitions through early 2009, see Human Rights Watch and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), p. 151.

[6]Situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic,” UNGA Resolution 68/182, 18 December 2013.

[7] Statement of Sierra Leone, Lomé Regional Seminar on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Lomé, Togo, 22 May 2013.

[8] Statement of Sierra Leone, Convention on Cluster Munitions Second Meeting of States Parties, Beirut, 14 September 2011; and statement of Sierra Leone, Lomé Regional Seminar on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Lomé, Togo, 22 May 2013.

[10] “IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup, 10/3/97,” IRIN, 10 March 1997.

[11] “10 Killed in Nigerian raid in eastern Sierra Leone,” Agence France-Presse, 11 December 1997.

[12] Statement of Sierra Leone, Accra Regional Conference on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Accra, 28 May 2012.

[13] Statement of Nigeria, Convention on Cluster Munitions Third Meeting of States Parties, Oslo, 11 September 2012.

[14] Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 7 Report, Form B, 25 January 2011.


Last Updated: 29 October 2014

Casualties and Victim Assistance

The Republic of Sierra Leone is responsible for landmine survivors, cluster munition victims, and survivors of other explosive remnants of war (ERW). Sierra Leone has made commitments to provide victim assistance through the Mine Ban Treaty and Convention on Conventional Weapons Protocol V, and has victim assistance obligations under the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Casualties

The total number of mine/ERW casualties and survivors in Sierra Leone is not known. The Monitor has not recorded any new mine/ERW incidents in Sierra Leone since the end of the civil war in 2002.[1]

Cluster munition casualties

Twenty-eight casualties were reported during cluster munition strikes in 1997.[2] No casualties from unexploded submunitions have been identified.

Victim Assistance

Sierra Leone has ongoing services for persons with disabilities, including survivors and victims of war.[3] There were three rehabilitation centers in the country in 2013. Some war victims, including amputees, receive assistance from local and international NGOs. Such programs involve reconstructive surgery, prostheses, and vocational training. However, amputees complained that they did not receive sufficient assistance compared with former combatants. [4]

The Persons with Disabilities Act (2011) of Sierra Leone prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities in employment and provision of state services; it also calls for free healthcare and education; equal access to government buildings, housing, and public transportation; and provision of rehabilitation services for persons with disabilities.[5]

Sierra Leone ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on 4 October 2010.

 



[1] ICBL, Landmine Monitor Report 2006: Toward a Mine-Free World (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada: July 2006).

[2] Handicap International (HI), Circle of Impact: The Fatal Footprint of Cluster Munitions on People and Communities (Brussels: HI, May 2007), p. 54.

[4] Ibid; United States Department of State, “2013 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Sierra Leone,” Washington, DC, 27 February 2014, pp. 27–28.

[5] United States Department of State, “2013 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Sierra Leone,” Washington, DC, 27 February 2014, pp. 27–28.