Casualties Overview

In 2011, the Monitor identified 122 mine/explosive remnants of war (ERW) casualties in Sudan.[1] Adult men, both civilians and peacekeepers, made up the majority of all casualties (75, 61%); six casualties were women. There were no casualties among deminers reported for 2011.

There were 30 child casualties of which 21 were boys and five were girls; the sex of four child casualties was unknown. This represented 48% of all civilian casualties for which the age was known, similar to the percentage (50%) in 2010.[2] The rate of child casualties in Darfur was significantly higher than in the rest of the country, representing 77% of casualties for which the age was known (21 of 27), all of which were caused by ERW. In South Kordofan, child casualties were 27% of the 22 civilian casualties reported.

Casualties were identified in nine of the 17 states of Sudan, with the vast majority (71 or 58%) in South Kordofan, a state bordering South Sudan which was the location of clashes between northern Sudanese and southern Sudanese forces in 2011. At least 11 casualties in South Kordofan were security forces, all of which occurred during a single incident east of Abyei town. In August 2011, 11 Ethiopian peacekeepers, including two women, from the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) became casualties (four killed; seven injured) when a patrol vehicle was destroyed by an antivehicle mine.[3] There were also another 38 casualties in South Kordofan for which it was unknown if the victims were civilians or security forces, which accounted for the vast majority of the 42 Sudanese casualties in 2011 for which the civilian status was not known.

The 122 mine/ERW reported casualties in 2011 were nearly double the 67 casualties reported in 2010 and more than three times the 40 casualties that were identified in 2009.[4] Part of the increase in reported casualties in 2011 was believed to have been influenced by improvements in Sudan’s data collection system with the launch of a new national casualty database in September 2010 and the subsequent increase in available data.[5] Previously, only casualties that occurred in the Darfur region were included. However, the increase was also certainly related to the ongoing violence in South Kordofan, which contributed to an increased movement of people, both civilians and military, in a region that is heavily contaminated by landmines and ERW.[6]

The National Mine Action Center (NMAC) registered 1,773 mine/ERW casualties (525 killed; 1,248 injured) for the period from 1964 to the end of 2011.[7]

Cluster munition casualties

In 2011, there were six casualties from cluster submunitions in two separate incidents in Blue Nile, a state that borders South Sudan.[8] There were a total of 29 casualties from cluster munitions in Sudan through the end of 2011, 23 of which occurred in 2009 or before.[9]

Victim Assistance

Sudan is known to have landmine survivors, cluster munition victims and survivors of other types of ERW. Sudan has made a commitment to provide victim assistance as a State Party to the Mine Ban Convention.

There were at least 1,248 mine/ERW survivors in Sudan at the end of 2011.[10]

Victim assistance since 1999[11]

Years of conflict seriously damaged the healthcare system in Sudan, and for many people living in remote areas, the nearest medical facilities were long distances away. In general, throughout the monitoring period, the assistance available for landmine casualties was irregular and insufficient to address the size of the problem, though there were some improvements in physical rehabilitation and economic inclusion.

In 1999, Sudan had just one rehabilitation center, located in Khartoum. With support from the ICRC, the National Authority for Prosthetic and Orthotics (NAPO) developed six satellite centers and mobile units by 2009. However, from 2007 to 2010, NAPO received reduced budget allocations from the Ministry of Finance, forcing it to suspend rehabilitation services for three months in 2010. It had also begun to close one center in Kadugli during 2009, which closed at the end of 2010, due to lack of technical staff. While rehabilitation services were free for mine/ERW survivors, lack of funding and insufficient raw materials meant that waiting periods were long, while the cost of transportation and accommodation made the cost of accessing services prohibitive.

From 1999, little to no economic inclusion initiatives or psychosocial support for mine survivors were available, a situation that improved significantly with increased international funding for victim assistance from 2007-2011. These programs were implemented by national organizations and coordinated by the National Mine Action Center (NMAC), with support from the United Nations Mine Action Office (UNMAO), within the framework of the National Victim Assistance Strategic Framework 2007–2011. In June 2011, UNMAO completed the handover of its victim assistance program to NMAC. The establishment of the National Disability Council in 2010 increased opportunities for the coordination of victim assistance and disability issues at national and state levels.

In 2011, poor security conditions prevented survivors in the states with the highest concentrations of mine survivors, Sudan’s southern states and the Darfur region, from accessing victim assistance services. No changes were reported in the availability of medical care or rehabilitation services, though the availability of economic inclusion programs for survivors decreased as funding for some targeted victim assistance programs provided through UNDP ended. NMAC made efforts to replace international funds with national resources, but this had little impact on the overall availability of victim assistance by the end of 2011. “Most if not all” health, rehabilitation and social services were physically inaccessible for survivors, according to Sudan.[12] As in previous years, the government pointed to the lack of funding as the greatest obstacle to expanding the victim assistance program throughout the country.[13]

Assessing victim assistance needs

No victim needs assessments were underway in 2011, despite the preparatory training in data collection and needs assessment provided in 2010 to 30 representatives from NMAC and NGO members of the Victim Assistance Working Group. This training had been planned in preparation for conducting a victim needs assessments in the Eastern States, Blue Nile, South Kordofan, and Khartoum.[14] In 2009, casualty data collection had been carried out in the states of Kassala and Khartoum.[15] In September 2010, a national casualty database was launched and the NMAC continued to maintain this through the end of 2011, adding data on new casualties as it was received.[16] Data in the database was disaggregated by sex and age group to ensure that the different needs of women, men, boys and girls could be addressed appropriately and met equally.[17] Data was shared with all members of the Victim Assistance Working Group, including government ministries and NGOs.[18]

Victim assistance coordination[19]

In 2011, NMAC continued to convene monthly meetings of the Victim Assistance Working Group to share updates on progress in implementing ongoing projects, to discuss issues such as the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), data collection, physical rehabilitation, and socioeconomic reintegration, and to plan the best use of available resources.[20] During the year, the Ministries of Health and Education joined the Victim Assistance Working Group and began participating in monthly meetings. Some 20 NGOs remained active participants providing regular updates on their activities during the year.[21] One NGO member of the Victim Assistance Working Group found the meetings to be “somewhat” effective as a venue for sharing information but indicated that the meetings did not result in significant changes.[22]

In June 2011,UNMAO completed the handover of the Sudan victim assistance program to NMAC, a transition that had been underway since 2006.[23] In order to ensure the continuity and sustainability of the program, NMAC advocated for the inclusion of victim assistance in the budgetary and technical plans of relevant government ministries. Related to this effort, as of the end of the year, the government of Khartoum state established a disability trust fund.[24]

In 2011, the National Council for Persons with Disabilities (the Council), established in October 2010, held four coordination meetings and finalized the Five Year Strategic Disability Plan 2012-2016.[25] NMAC as well as other members of the Victim Assistance Working Group were members of the Council and participated in meetings to ensure the inclusion of mine survivors in disability planning.[26] The disability plan included six objectives designed to promote the rights of persons with disabilities, in accordance with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and to ensure the full participation of persons with disabilities in the community. The plan identified relevant government and NGO implementing agencies but did not include a budget or a monitoring mechanism.[27] In developing the disability plan, the National Victim Assistance Strategic Framework was considered.[28] During the year, the Council established state-level disability working groups with the goal of setting up State Disability Councils to replicate the work of the National Disability Council at the local level.[29]

Sudan provided comprehensive updates on progress and challenges for victim assistance at the Second Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Beirut in September 2011, the Eleventh Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty in Geneva in December 2011, and at the Mine Ban Treaty intersessional meetings in Geneva in May 2012. Statements noted progress made in the inclusion of survivors and their representative organizations in victim assistance and highlighted the need for funding from the international community to extend victim assistance throughout the country.[30] Sudan also completed Form J of the Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 report for calendar year 2011 to share information about victim assistance implementation.[31]

Participation and inclusion in victim assistance

Towards the implementation of the Cartagena Action Plan, the Ministry of Social Welfare issued a decree in 2010 recommending the involvement of all mine/ERW survivors associations in all decisions and activities related to victim assistance policies and plans.[32] Survivors and their representative organizations were included as members of the Victim Assistance Working Group.[33] Through NGOs, survivors were involved in the design and implementation of victim assistance projects, especially social and economic reintegration projects, and in advocacy for disability rights.[34]

Service accessibility and effectiveness

Victim assistance activities[35]

No significant changes to the accessibility or availability of medical care were reported in 2011. Medical facilities in mine affected areas were inadequate to address the emergency medical needs of mine survivors whose injuries required evacuations to hospitals in major cities. Injuries from mine/ERW incidents were aggravated by delays in providing an immediate emergency response due to a lack of first aid materials, expertise or ambulances.[36] While military mine/ERW survivors were covered by health insurance, many civilian survivors were not, making ongoing healthcare unaffordable.[37] Even for survivors who were insured, the National Health Insurance failed to cover a number of disability-related claims.[38]

In 2011, the number of mine/ERW survivors who received prosthetics through ICRC-supported rehabilitation centers doubled as compared with 2010.[39] Both the increasing number of new casualties and the referral system that the ICRC introduced in the Darfur region in 2010 likely contributed to this rise.[40] However, as of the end of 2011, prolonged waiting periods to receive care were still the norm due to the lack of both funding and qualified technicians coupled with the high demand for rehabilitation services. The rehabilitation sector remained dependent on external funding sources.[41]

The network of psychologists and social workers trained by the national NGO Rufaida in 2010 continued to provide psychological support to survivors in Khartoum state. Rufaida began preparations to extend this project to three other mine affected states in 2012.[42] The Sudan Disarmament, Demobilization, Reintegration Commission increased its coordination with the Ministry of Health to facilitate access to psychological support for former combatants with disabilities.[43]

In 2011, due to a decline in available funding, the number of economic inclusion programs targeting mine/ERW survivors decreased from six to three, significantly reducing the availability of these programs.[44] These three programs were limited to South Kordofan, Blue Nile and Khartoum. As in 2010, increased funding to the programs specifically for the reintegration of disabled former combatants, including mine/ERW survivors, somewhat offset this reduction, but did not benefit other survivors.[45] In 2011, NMAC established a partnership with the Bank of Khartoum to increase opportunities for micro-credit for mine/ERW survivors. However, it was not known if any survivors had benefited from this initiative by the end of the year.[46] In early 2012, NMAC began to extend economic inclusion programs to the Darfur region.[47]

In Sudan, the rights of persons with disabilities were guaranteed by law, though the law required amendment to comply with the CRPD.[48]  Legislation was not implemented effectively and many public officials lacked awareness of the law and the rights of persons with disabilities more generally.[49] Similarly, the employment quota for persons with disabilities was not fulfilled and the government lacked punitive measures through which to enforce it.[50] There were no laws or policies to ensure accessibility for persons with disabilities; almost no buildings and public spaces were accessible.[51]

Sudan ratified the CRPD on 24 April 2009.