Contamination and Impact

The Republic of Angola is heavily contaminated with mines and explosive remnants of war (ERW), which may include cluster munition remnants. Contamination is the result of more than four decades of armed conflict, which ended in 2002.

Mines

Angola continued to report different datasets describing the extent of its remaining landmine problem, although the National Intersectorial Commission for Demining and Humanitarian Assistance (CNIDAH) is making progress in addressing the problem. In June 2012, in response to a question from the Co-Chairs of the Standing Committee on Mine Clearance regarding the database, CNIDAH said that while inconsistencies still remained in the database, they were fewer than the 2,017 suspected hazardous areas (SHAs) reported in its Article 5 Extension Request in March 2012.[1]

In May 2013, CNIDAH reported there were 1,110 SHAs and 965 confirmed hazardous areas (CHAs) or a total of 2,075 SHA and CHA covering a combined 1,246,700km², an area considered widely inaccurate by all stakeholders. However, discrepancies continue to exist between the NGO operator data and the information in the database at CNIDAH on the number of tasks completed and on the number of remaining SHAs and CHAs. The discrepancies are tasks identified by operators that are not in the database and also tasks that are in progress or completed that are different in the two databases.[2] For example, HALO Trust reports that in April 2013 there were 544 CHA remaining in the five provinces in which they work, while CNIDAH reports there are 705 SHA/CHA remaining; Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) reported in September 2013 that 280 SHAs remain in the five provinces they work in, while CNIDAH reported there were 491 remaining. Both HALO and NPA are working closely with CNIDAH to correct the differences[3] (described in more detail below in the Survey section of this report).

Despite the ongoing discrepancies and the high number of remaining contaminated areas, 49% of SHAs/mined areas have been eliminated since the Landmine Impact Survey (LIS) was completed in 2007; two-thirds of these in areas monitored by HALO.[4]

Ten of the 18 provinces have at least 80 SHAs, indicating the extent and high level of contamination remaining, though half of the remaining contamination is just in the four provinces of Moxico, Kuando Kubango, Bié, and Kwanza Sul.

It is planned that the national non-technical survey (NTS), begun in 2011, and the mapping project described in Angola’s Article 5 Extension Request that commenced in May 2013 will clarify the extent of the contamination throughout Angola by 2016, establishing a new baseline for planning and the submission of second extension request.[5]

Remaining contaminated area according to CNIDAH as of May 2013[6]

Cluster munition remnants

The extent to which Angola continues to be affected by unexploded submunitions is unclear. Clearance operators have not found cluster submunitions in over five years. As of March 2013, only HALO had reported finding unexploded submunitions since February 2008.[7] In April 2011, NPA reported that the impact of cluster munition remnants was “very low” in Kwanza Sul, Kwanza Norte, Malanje, Uige, and Zaire.[8] However, HALO and the National Institute for Demining (INAD) claim that unexploded submunitions remain to be cleared in Kuando Kubango.[9]

At least two types of cluster munitions have been found in Angola: the Russian-made PTAB-2.5 KO and the AO-2.5 RT. According to data and completion reports from NGO operators in the national database at CNIDAH as of February 2008, NPA had reported clearing 13 unexploded submunitions in the municipality of Ebo in Kwanza Sul province; Mines Advisory Group (MAG) had reported clearing 140 unexploded submunitions in Moxico province; and HALO reported clearing 230 unexploded submunitions in Kunhinga municipality in Bié province.[10]

Other explosive remnants of war

Angola is contaminated with ERW across all 18 provinces. Demining operators expend considerable assets on explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) tasks. The Executive Commission for Demining (Comissão Executiva de Desminagem, CED) reported finding 65,000 items of unexploded ordnance (UXO) in 2011 and more than 2.4 million since 1996.[11]

Mine Action Program

Key institutions and operators

Angola has two mine action management structures. CNIDAH serves as the de facto national mine action authority. It reports to the Council of Ministers, or in effect to the President of Angola. Since 2002, CNIDAH has been responsible for the coordination of mine action in the country. It also accredits NGOs and commercial demining companies.[12] CNIDAH’s 18 provincial operations offices (one in each province), under the vice-governor of the province, determine annual priorities based on demining NGO priority tasks, the LIS, provincial plans, and requests from traditional leaders and other NGOs.[13]

The other mine action body is the CED, established in 2005 to manage Angola’s national development plan that includes mine clearance in areas where development projects are a priority. It is chaired by the Minister of Social Assistance and Reintegration (MINARS).[14] The 2012 CED budget for demining was approximately US$62 million, or more than four times that of CNIDAH’s approximately $14 million budget.[15]

Priorities of the state entities are determined by the government of Angola’s national plan to rebuild the country’s infrastructure. Thus, most of the clearance work targets roads, bridges, ports, airports, water sources, electric towers, and land for the laying of fiber optic cables and constructing housing. Humanitarian demining by NGOs and supported by international donors (at an ever-decreasing level) uses the LIS as its baseline.

This lack of coordination between development demining and humanitarian demining occurs in all 18 provinces. The ongoing NTS and the conversion of the state clearance records into the Information Management System for Mine Action (IMSMA) is an attempt to put all known mined areas and results into one database at CNIDAH. Both CNIDAH and CED have said the state entities will be conducting more humanitarian demining in the future and are an integral part of the extension request.[16]

Mine action information management

The lack of a reliable national mine action database is one of the most protracted problems in the mine action program in Angola. The problem has two aspects. One is the database at CNIDAH does not match the NGOs’ own records even though the database is largely based on their records. The other problem, and arguably the more severe one, is the lack of standardized reporting between CNIDAH and the CED. The extent of the problem has been described in previous editions of the Monitor and the problem persisted in 2012 and into 2013, though some progress has been made in addressing the problem.

One of the major problems in recording national survey and clearance data is that the CED and its operators (INAD, the Angolan Armed Forces, the border police, and commercial companies) use a different reporting format than the NGOs under CNIDAH, making it impossible for Angola to present an accurate picture of its landmine problem and an adequate plan to address it. Angola identified an action plan in its March 2012 Article 5 deadline Extension Request to correct the database problem by training the CED operators in IMSMA and converting old records to IMSMA.[17] A more fundamental problem that also needs correction is that CED uses both the metric and the imperial system of measurement (inches and feet) in its reporting.[18]

However, there has been some progress in resolving the discrepancies between the NGO and CNIDAH databases. HALO and CNIDAH worked together to analyze the two datasets covering Benguela, Bié, Huambo, Huila, and Kuando Kubango provinces. HALO has 544 CHAs in their database for the five provinces. To simplify the analysis from the long list of records (that include clearance, re-surveying, new mined areas, and cancelled SHA records) that have built up over the years—especially after the LIS was completed in 2006—HALO electronically transferred their dataset to CNIDAH and provided a paper copy for backup. According to HALO, both datasets matched in March 2013 when the joint effort was completed and a process was in place to identify future discrepancies when HALO adds new data. To ensure the two datasets remain the same, the HALO database manager and CNIDAH will regularly meet in Luanda and compare datasets.[19] However, in May 2013 CNIDAH reported there were 705 SHA/CHA remaining in the areas where HALO works and not 544, the number in HALO’s database.

The joint effort between CNIDAH and HALO also provided an opportunity to train the CNIDAH information management team on IMSMA as well as provide additional reporting tools for them to query and extract information from IMSMA. HALO is providing ongoing assistance.[20] NPA planned to compare their data with CNIDAH as well.[21]

MAG and DCA also met with CNIDAH on comparing datasets. The most frequent causes of discrepancies with the operators are the following:

-    Error code finder (or its format; solved in most email exchanges);
- New areas that were not in the CNIDAH database;
- Discredited areas that were not entered in the CNIDAH database;
- Completion reports that were not processed;
- Reports were missing;
- Reporting on overlapping mined areas;
- Treating a completion report of a road task the same as a mined area.[22]

While CNIDAH has made considerable progress in addressing database discrepancies with the NGO operators, it still needs to address numerous database and reporting issues with INAD, the largest demining operator in Angola.

Evaluations

The mine action program in Angola has never had an external evaluation since its inception.

Land Release

Angola reported in 1997 that there were over 4,000 SHAs in the country. At the end of 2011 they reported there were just over 2,000 SHAs.[23] In addition, almost 13,000km of roads have been verified free from mines, allowing access throughout the country. According to CNIDAH, all the main roads of the country have been cleared with only some secondary and tertiary roads remaining.[24] There is no doubt Angola has made considerable progress in reducing contamination, especially since the LIS was completed in 2006, and the much lower casualty numbers in recent years also indicate a substantial reduction of contaminated area; however, the various problems with the national database described above, including the different reporting formats between CNIDAH and CED, prevent any description of an accurate picture of landmine contamination.

Survey in 2012

General and Non-Technical Survey

The follow-up to the LIS is the “Survey and update of data concerning suspect hazardous areas” (“Levantamento e actualização dos dados de areas suspeitas de contaminação com minas terrestres”), commonly referred to as LIS II, although CNIDAH has indicated a more accurate description is “general survey.”[25] Both national and international NGOs will conduct the survey under CNIDAH supervision.[26] In 2011, CNIDAH trained the national NGOs Clube de Jovens da Huila, APACOMINAS, ODAH, Saving Association of People (ASASP), and Angola Livre de Minas to conduct NTS.[27] DCA, MAG, and MgM each have one team dedicated to the survey in Moxico and Kuando Kubango provinces.[28] Data from HALO and NPA will be used in lieu of their participating in the survey as both operators have completed surveying in the 10 provinces they operate. CNIDAH’s decision to accept the HALO and NPA data as the latest data should make 2014 a more realistic goal to achieve for the completion date of the survey.[29] A combination of the ongoing NTS and standardizing the now-incompatible report formats used by CNIDAH and CED may result in a more accurate picture of mine contamination in Angola, which (judged by the results in the past 10 years) has been severe. Although it is expected the survey will identify some new SHAs, it is also expected the survey will reduce the overall contaminated area.[30]

Survey results from HALO and NPA illustrate the impact the ongoing NTS (that CNIDAH is coordinating) could have on the new baseline that will result from the survey. HALO reported that as of December 2012, in Bié, Benguela, Huambo, Huila, and Kuando Kubango there were 544 CHAs covering 39km² remaining.[31] This compares to 705 SHAs and 105km² in the CNIDAH database.[32]

NPA completed re-surveying the SHAs identified in the LIS in Malange, Kwanza North, Kwanza Sul, Uige, and Zaire in April 2013 that identified 280 SHAs remaining covering 60km²; a reduction in SHAs and contaminated area was expected. However, the database at CNIDAH contained 491 SHAs covering 280km² for the same provinces. NPA planned to meet with CNIDAH before the end of 2013 and go through the same exercise as HALO did with CNIDAH to correct the discrepancies in the CNIDAH database.[33]

Combined, HALO and NPA have completed surveys in 10 provinces and identified 824 SHAs/CHAs covering 99km² compared to CNIDAH’s records of 2,017 SHAs covering 385km².

In a parallel activity, CNIDAH planned to start a mapping project in June 2013 whereby trained technicians visit, measure, and map each SHA. CNIDAH estimates the cost of this separate activity to be $5.4 million.[34]The government of Angola will cover an estimated $2.7 million needed for equipment, vehicles, operational, and administrative costs of the five national operators, and the cost of monitoring by CNIDAH during the survey.[35]

Roads

During the long conflict and for several years afterwards, primary, secondary, and tertiary roads were inaccessible due to a fear of mines. Vast amounts of roads have since been checked for mine contamination and, according to INAD, all major roads have been cleared and were being paved with asphalt as planned by the Ministry of Public Works and Road Institute of Angola, who are responsible for the road project.[36] CED reports over 13,000km of road have been verified and MgM continues to clear and verify roads in Kuando Kubango province while HALO clears and verifies roads in Bié and Kuando Kubango provinces.

In 2012, HALO conducted a post-clearance survey on road use in Bié province to highlight the threat posed by antivehicle mines left buried in roads post-conflict and to measure the impact of their removal. Since 2003, HALO has removed 210 antivehicle mines from 5,580km of mine “suspect” roads across five provinces using Road Threat Reduction (RTR) techniques developed to rapidly reduce accidents and to open up emergency road access.[37]

In Bié province where HALO conducted the post clearance survey, 96 roads, totalling 1,823km had been assessed. From 2003–2011 seven antipersonnel mines and 71 antivehicle mines were found. HALO found from a sample of nine roads totalling 532km that clearance of the roads had impacted 165,127 people. When extrapolated across all 1,823km, HALO estimated as many as 650,000 people may have benefitted from the reduced threat on the roads in Bié province.[38]

According to MgM, there are still roads that need to be demined in some areas of Kuando Kubango province. While MgM considers the possibly mined roads as low to medium risk, their location presents operational challenges. The roads are located between rivers that overflow during the rainy season and there are no bridges crossing the large flood plains, so MgM is building raised bank roads with culverts (dykes). MGM uses armored graders to clear away the surface of secondary and tertiary roads to a depth of 30cm and then uses dogs and manual teams to check for mines that may be laid deeper. MgM demines to a minimum of 8 meters in width, but in many cases demines to a much larger width.[39]

Mine clearance in 2012

Mine clearance operators in Angola include the international NGOs DCA (in Moxico), HALO (in Bie, Huambo, Benguela, and Kuando Kubango), MAG (in Moxico), MgM (in Kuando Kubango), NPA (in Malange and Uige), and the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA), commercial companies, and INAD which operate in all 18 provinces. In 2012, five NGO operators cleared over 4km²—approximately the same amount of land as in 2011.[40] Clearance figures for the CED, including INAD, were not made available to the ICBL.

NGO demining in 2012

In 2012, five international NGOs cleared 4.39km² of mined area and found 3,615 antipersonnel mines and 338 antivehicle mines. MgM opened 250km of road while clearing 2km of road. During road clearance, MgM found two antipersonnel mines and two antivehicle mines.[41]

NGO mine clearance in 2012[42]

CED demining in 2012

INAD, the FAA, the border police, and commercial companies, coordinated by CED, clear mines in support of Angola’s national development plans in order to rebuild the infrastructure damaged by the conflict that ended in 2002. CED’s priorities include demining in support of efforts to build or rehabilitate airports, railways, bridges, hydroelectric power, schools, hospitals, roads, and communications, highlighted by the clearing of land to lay fiber optic cables. Much of the demining by INAD, the commercial companies, and the FAA involves verifying land as not being contaminated rather than actually clearing mines.[43]

CED demining assets are considerable. In 2012, the CED budget was approximately $60 million and there were 57 demining brigades among four national operators.[44] At the end of 2011, mechanical assets included 20 Bozena-5 remote control flail machines, 12 Hitachi flails, six Minewolfs, four Casspir armoured vehicles, and 1 Komatsu demining machine.[45]

Government of Angola Mine Clearance Operators[46]

In 2012, CED reported assessing 85.8km² while finding 5,586 antipersonnel mines and 511 antivehicle mines.[47] It is not known what amount of these figures was the result of clearing CHA or verifying roads.

Demining by commercial companies in 2012

CNIDAH reported commercial demining companies cleared approximately 10km² in 2012. However, like the CED results it is not known what amount of these figures was the result of clearing CHA or verifying roads.[48]

Compliance with Article 5 of the Mine Ban Treaty

Under Article 5 of the Mine Ban Treaty, Angola is required to destroy all antipersonnel mines in mined areas under its jurisdiction or control as soon as possible, but not later than 1 January 2013.

On 31 March 2012, Angola submitted an extension request for five years through 1 January 2018 in order to complete a general survey; to complete a mapping certification and confirmation project; to train state organizations led by INAD and the FAA; and to train commercial demining companies in IMSMA. This is planned to result in an updated, and robust, national database and a more accurate assessment of the remaining mine problem.[49] In response to a question from the co-chairs of the Standing Committee on Mine Clearance in June 2012 about shortening the extension period, CNIDAH replied they could not shorten the period, partly due to uncertainty over when the mapping project could begin.[50]

At the end of the proposed extension period, Angola plans to submit another extension request based on the results of surveys and clearance, but has stated that it already predicts it will need more than 10 years beyond 2018.[51]

The Angola Mine Action Program has had numerous disappointments since 2002 when CNIDAH was established, none more so than the state of its mine action database. The extension request is extremely ambitious because—in addition to survey, mapping, and conversion of several years of data to IMSMA—it expects to clear and/or release 300km² in 2013–2018. CNIDAH’s record in meeting other targets on time raises doubts that they can accomplish what they plan to do within five years.

Battle area clearance in 2012

The amount of Battle Area Clearance (BAC) conducted in 2012 remained low, as in previous years.[52] In 2012, only MgM and NPA conducted BAC. NPA reported one task of 34,788m² and MgM reported one task of 14,734m².

BAC: 2012[53]

Clearance of cluster munition contaminated area[54]

Since 1994, only a very few cluster bomb strikes have been identified by HALO, which has therefore concluded that the impact of submunitions is minimal in Angola. Clearing submunitions has been mainly EOD call-out/spot tasks.

More typical is the destruction of old or unserviceable cluster munitions identified by HALO’s Weapons and Ammunition Disposal (WAD) teams in military storage areas, some of which have already been earmarked for subsequent disposal by the FAA. Since 2005, HALO WAD teams have destroyed a total of 7,284 submunitions, including 12 in 2012.[55]

Quality management

Each international demining operator and INAD has its own internal quality management system. After a clearance task has been completed, CNIDAH is responsible for quality control.[56]

Safety of demining personnel

HALO reported two of their deminers were injured in separate incidents in 2012 during mine clearance operations. On 8 May 2012 in Cuito Cuanavale, Kuando Kubango province a 34-year-old male broke his collarbone when a R2M2 antipersonnel mine exploded. In October in Bie province a 31-year-old male lost two fingers when Type 72A antipersonnel mine exploded.[57]

The other NGO operators, CNIDAH, and CED, did not report any accidents during demining in 2012.