Somalia

The Somali Republic signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008.

In April 2013, a representative of the Somalia National Mine Action Agency (SNMAA) informed the Monitor that continuing political instability and a full political agenda has stalled Somalia’s ratification of the convention, but emphasized that the presidency is still committed to ratification.[1] In September 2011, Somalia stated that ratification of the convention was with “the Council of Ministers of the Somalia Transitional Federal Government to be discussed, approved and presented to the Transitional Federal Parliament of Somalia to ratify.”[2]

Somalia attended one meeting of the Oslo Process that produced the convention (Vienna in December 2007).[3] It did not participate in any international or regional meetings in 2009 or 2010. Somalia attended the convention’s Second Meeting of States Parties in Beirut, Lebanon in September 2011 where it provided an update on ratification. It participated in the Third Meeting of States Parties in Oslo, Norway in September 2012 but did not make any statements. For the first time, Somalia attended intersessional meetings of the convention in Geneva in April 2013, but did not make any statements.

Somalia did not participate in a regional seminar on the universalization of the convention held in Lomé, Togo in May 2013.

Somalia acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty on 16 April 2012. It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Somalia has not made a national statement to express concern at Syria’s use of cluster munitions, but it voted in favor of a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on 15 May 2013 that strongly condemned “the use by Syrian authorities of…cluster munitions.”[4]

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

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

In April 2013, the director of SNMAA informed the Monitor that cluster munition remnants were recently discovered near Somalia’s border with Ethiopia and the area is being surveyed to determine the extent of contamination.[5] According to available information, dozens of failed PTAB-2.5M and some AO-1SCh explosive submunitions have been found within a 30-kilometer radius of the Somali border town of Dolow. The contamination is believed to have occurred during the 1977–1978 Ogaden War between Somalia and Ethiopia, but it is unclear who was responsible for the use.[6]