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SUDAN, Landmine Monitor Report 2000
LM Report 2000 Full Report   Executive Summary   Key Findings   Key Developments   Translated Country Reports

SUDAN

Key developments since March 1999: Both the government of Sudan, a signatory to the Mine Ban Treaty, and the opposition Sudan People’s Liberation Army are believed to have used antipersonnel mines in this reporting period. On 27 March 2000, the SPLM/A officially committed to the “Geneva Call,” thereby agreeing not to use antipersonnel landmines under any circumstances. Sudan’s humanitarian mine action efforts continue to be seriously disrupted by the country’s continuing civil war. In November 1999, the U.S. reported that Sudan manufactures landmines; Landmine Monitor has not been able to confirm this report.

Government Mine Ban Policy

Sudan signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 4 December 1997, but has not yet ratified. According to a Ministry of External Relations official, a technical committee has been established to examine ratification.[1] In May 1999, a senior government official stated that ratification was “under process.”[2]

In a reply to Landmine Monitor dated 31 July 2000, Sudan stated its “signing of the Convention, despite its security concerns which are well known to all, stems from its deep conviction and its strong belief that humanity should get rid of such dangerous weapons which threaten the lives of innocent population.... The Government of Sudan is committed to the letter and spirit of the provisions of the Convention.”[3]

Sudan attended the First Meeting of States Parties in Maputo, with a delegation led by Ambassador Awad M. Hassan, Director-General of the Department of Disarmament of the Ministry of External Relations. In a statement to the plenary, Ambassador Hassan described the problem of uncleared landmines in Sudan and stated that “technical and financial assistance is needed. The resources provided by the UN are obviously not sufficient. Therefore every direct assistance to my country is appreciated and valuable.”[4]

Sudan has participated in the meetings of the Standing Committee of Experts on Mine Clearance in September 1999 and March 2000, the meeting on Victim Assistance in September 1999, the meeting on Technologies for Mine Action in December 1999 and the meeting on General Status and Operation of the Convention in May 2000.

Sudan sponsored and voted in favor of UN General Assembly Resolution 54/54B supporting the Mine Ban Treaty in December 1999. It had supported similar UNGA resolutions on landmines in 1996, 1997 and 1998.

The Sudan Campaign to Ban Landmines actively campaigns for ratification of the Mine Ban Treaty by Sudan, among other activities.[5]

Sudan is not a party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons and it is not a member of the Conference on Disarmament.

SPLM/A Mine Ban Policy

The main armed opposition group is the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), whose armed forces are known as the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). The SPLM/A controls a large area of southern and eastern Sudan. On 27 March 2000, at a press conference in Geneva, SPLM/A representative Edward Lino Abyei verbally committed the SPLM/A to the “Deed of Commitment under Geneva Call for Adherence to a Total Ban on Anti-Personnel Mines and for Cooperation in Mine Action.” The Geneva Call is a Swiss-registered non-governmental body. The deed is officially held by the President of the government of Geneva, who accepted this oral commitment from the SPLM/A. Under the deed, the SPLM/A committed itself not to use antipersonnel landmines under any circumstances. Two other non-state actors signed the deed on that date, which was the launch of the Geneva Call. On 24-25 March 2000, the SPLM/A participated in the International Conference on Non-State Actors, held in Geneva, hosted by the Swiss Campaign to Ban Landmines in cooperation with a number of other national ban campaigns.

Previously, in 1996, the SPLM/A “declared a unilateral moratorium on the use of landmines provided that there is a significant reciprocation on the side of GOS.”[6] The SPLM/A also created Operation Save Innocent Lives (OSIL-Sudan) in part to address the issue of landmines and UXO in the areas under their control.[7]

In March 1999, the government of Sudan and the SPLM/A pledged not to use mines, although details on these pledges secured by Olara Otunnu, the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict, are not available.[8]

Production

In November 1999, the U.S. Department of State reported that, “Sudan's Military Industry Corporation, which receives technical support from a variety of eastern European and Middle East countries, manufactures ammunition, landmines, and small arms.”[9] Landmine Monitor has not been able to confirm this report or to clarify if the alleged production includes antipersonnel mines. This is the first time known to Landmine Monitor that Sudan has been identified as a producer of either AP or AT mines. In its 31 July 2000 letter to Landmine Monitor, the government of Sudan states that “[i]t does not produce landmines.” The SPLM/A has not been known to manufacture landmines. The armed forces of both the government of Sudan and SPLM/A have considerable experience in improvisation techniques and are capable of producing improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which are also prohibited by the Mine Ban Treaty.[10]

Transfer

Sudan shares borders with nine African countries, almost all beset by conflict. There have been past allegations that the government transferred AP and AT landmines to rebel groups in neighboring countries, including to the Eritrean Islamic Jihad, which has used AT mines on civilian roads, and to the Ugandan rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army.[11] In December 1999, Sudan and Uganda signed a reconciliation agreement under the mediation of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. The two nations agreed to reestablish diplomatic relations and to stop all support to rebel groups based in their territories.[12] Nevertheless it appears that both Sudan and Uganda continue to support rebel groups with arms.

Stockpiling

Both the government’s military and the SPLA are believed to have stockpiled AP mines, but details on the size, location or types of mines are unknown. AP mines from Belgium, China, Egypt, Israel, Italy, United States and former Soviet Union have been identified in Sudan.[13] In July 1999, an assessment of Kassala in eastern Sudan and Malakal in the Upper Nile also found AP mines from Iran and Iraq.[14] No AP mine destruction is known to have taken place by either the government of Sudan or the SPLA.

Government Use

Over the past forty-four years since independence Sudan has witnessed relative peace for only the eleven years between 1972 and 1983. Nearly two million may have been killed, four million internally displaced and at least 350,000 people have fled to neighboring countries.[15] The war in Sudan is primarily concentrated in the southern region, but in 1989 it reached the Nuba Mountains and in 1995 the civil war expanded to eastern Sudan. In contested areas of south Sudan, the government controls some towns while the surrounding countryside is dominated by insurgent forces and in some cases by government tribal militias. “In this type of warfare,” an August 1997 UN report stated, “the government uses landmines to protect the garrison towns, and to interdict the movement of insurgent supplies and forces. The rebels also use landmines to fix government forces in the towns, and to interdict their supply lines. Both sides also reportedly continue to use landmines to terrorize local populations to diminish their support for the other side.”[16]

The war in southern Sudan intensified in 1999, and it appears that both the government and the SPLA have continued to use antipersonnel mines. Human Rights Watch undertook a field mission to Sudan in mid-1999. Based on testimony from the local population, Human Rights Watch believes that the government has used antipersonnel mines, largely in its efforts to control the oil fields in southern Sudan.[17] Witnesses to landmine explosions said that the government laid antipersonnel mines in and around Ler and Adok in Western Upper Nile, contested oil areas.[18] In one witnessed incident, an antipersonnel mine triggered an attached antitank mine, killing three rebel combatants at once, outside a government barracks in Ler in early July 1999. Others have reported this government practice of attaching AT to AP land mines for greater lethality.

Though the Mine Ban Treaty has not been ratified by Sudan, the use of mines by a signatory can be judged a breach of its international obligations. Under Article 18 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, “A state is obliged to refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose of a treaty when...it has signed the treaty....” Clearly, new use of mines defeats the object and purpose of the treaty.

Government officials, including the State Minister of Foreign Relations, Mr. Ali Numeri, continue to state that the government of Sudan does not use AP mines.[19] This was repeated in the 31 July 2000 letter to Landmine Monitor: “It does not produce landmines, nor use it. The statistics have shown that the rebel movement is the party which has used and continues to use landmines in the southern and eastern part of the country....”

SPLA Use

In early 1999, the SPLA laid both antipersonnel and antitank mines in Chukudum in Eastern Equatoria, an area under SPLA control close to the Ugandan border. An SPLA officer and locals told Landmine Monitor researchers that 2,500 landmines were planted in Muleny, Natagumi and Lopitac triangle; 150 landmines were planted in the banana and orchard plantation in the valley behind Chukudum Catholic Mission up to Komiri Hill; and 1,000 were planted behind Chukudum Hospital to Nangoromitto and behind SPLA barracks. When presented with these figures, OSIL-Sudan Managing Director Aleu Ayiney Aleu stated that “only 160” landmines were planted in Chukudum by the SPLA.[20]

The area did not suffer from landmines until 1999 when area residents fell out with the town’s SPLA commander. Chukudum town is now encircled with minefields, which observers state are aimed at preventing civilians from returning to the town. Civilians fled to the mountains to avoid SPLA shelling of the town and fighting between the Bor Dinka in SPLA units and armed local residents of the Didinga tribe. The Chukudum Landmines Project reports that through May 2000, thirty-seven people died and fourteen were injured by landmines.[21]

In February 2000, a shepherd was killed and nine others injured in a landmine blast when they were driving their herds in Bahr-el-Arab region, in south Darfur in southwest Sudan. According to people in the region, the SPLA was responsible for laying mines in the area in 1999. They claim some 160 mines were laid, which in 1999 killed eleven people and injured five others.[22]

On 16 January 2000, the Ugandan army and police reportedly captured two SPLA commanders in Arua town in northwestern Uganda in a raid that had been prompted by finding two antipersonnel mines in an Arua township villages two weeks earlier.[23]

NDA Use

In 1995, the armed opposition umbrella group, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) opened a new front in Eastern Sudan.[24] Both AP and AT mines have been used on this front. In March 2000, NDA forces seized Sudan’s Hamaskhorab district near the town of Kassala. The mayor of Kassala town, Ibrahim Mohamoud Hamid, claimed that the opposition based in Eritrea planted landmines.[25] Between 1996 and the first half of 1999, 122 mine incidents were recorded around Kassala, involving 327 victims including forty-two fatalities.[26] In May 1999 three persons were killed and eight injured by mines allegedly planted by the NDA north of Kassala town. The spokesperson for the government’s armed forces in the region, Lt. General Muhammad Yasin, condemned the use of landmines and said his forces had cleared other mines with no losses.[27] In May 2000 an Eritrean refugee fleeing the Ethiopian-Eritrean border war was reported killed by an AP mine on the Sudan side of the border.[28]

According to the Beja Relief Organization (the relief wing of the armed opposition Beja Congress, a member of the NDA), truckers on the border report that all roads inside Sudan to Eritrea are heavily mined except one road to Germaika, a village on the Eritrean side of the border. There are no warning signs on the mined roads, but the Sudanese military warn truckers and directs them onto this one road. The Beja Congress claims not to have or to use landmines.[29]

Landmine Problem/Survey and Assessment

The southern regions of Equatoria, Bahr El Ghazal, and Upper Nile, the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan in central Sudan, and the eastern region, where there has been fighting since 1995, are all mine-affected. Most roads in the southern region are mined, and areas around towns such as Yei, Juba, Torit, Kapoeta and the Ugandan border town of Kaya, are reported mined.[30]

In the recent years, several assessment have been made of the mine problem in Sudan but no comprehensive assessment or survey is planned, similar to the Level One Impact Surveys currently underway in other countries. The former United Nations Department of Humanitarian Affairs Mine Clearance and Policy Unit made an assessment mission in 1997 at the request of the government of Sudan.[31] Landmines were included in an August 1998 report by the Arms Division of Human Rights Watch, Sudan: Global Trade, Local Conflict.[32] Also in 1998, Rädda Barnen, UNICEF, Oxfam U.K. and the Sudanese Development Association made an assessment of the landmine problem in Kassala.[33] In 1999, Dr. Hussein El-Obeid, of the government of Sudan’s Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC) made an assessment of the mine problem in Kassala.[34] In July 1999, Rae McGrath made a technical assessment of the landmine situation in Kassala and Malakal with photographer John Rodsted.[35] Finally, in 1998 a fifth year medical student at the Medicine University of Khartoum conducted research into the socio-economic impact of mines in Sudan, which included case studies of seventy mine victims who are patients of the National Center for Prostheses and Orthoses (NAPCO).

Mine Clearance

Mine action efforts in government-controlled areas are carried out by the Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC). The Sudanese Army is responsible for mine clearance. A mine action plan has been drawn up, but implementation is hindered by lack of resources and funding.[36] The government of Sudan continues to call for assistance in mine clearance, both technical and financial.[37]

The International Partner’s Forum of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IPF-IGAD) has planned a mine action component for post-war rehabilitation and development programs in the Sudan.[38] The IPF is a group of donors that work closely with the Horn of Africa regional development organization, IGAD, which since 1994 has hosted peace negotiations between the government of Sudan and the SPLA/M.

The Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association, SRRA, (the relief wing of the SPLA), created OSIL-Sudan in November 1996 to deal with the problems of landmines.[39] OSIL-Sudan, supported by a consortium of international and non-governmental organizations, started a mine action program in September 1997. [40] In a March 2000 presentation, OSIL-Sudan’s Managing Director, Aleu Ayieny Aleu, stated that OSIL now has four integrated mine action teams of 45 persons (one-third of whom are women) and expects to expand to 11 teams by April 2001.[41] Between September 1997 and April 2000 OSIL reports that it has removed 1,815 antipersonnel mines, 196 antitank mines, 76,408 UXOs, and cleared 527 miles of road and 2.2 square kilometers of land.[42] Aleu states that “we have destroyed every single mine we have found.”[43]

The UK-based NGO Mines Advisory Group provided initial training, capacity building, and equipping of OSIL teams at the end of 1998. MAG conducted a further capacity and needs assessment in April 2000, and from mid-2000 MAG will provide additional training and capacity building to OSIL. This training will include mine clearance, mine awareness, community liaison and management techniques. Two existing and four new OSIL mine clearance teams and four mine awareness teams will be trained. This US$120,000 project is funded through Basel Mission with funds from the government of Switzerland.[44]

Mine Awareness

In government of Sudan-controlled areas, mine awareness programs are the responsibility of the Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC). Organizations in the Sudan Campaign to Ban Landmines are also active in mine awareness activities. These include the Sudanese Red Crescent Society and those grouped under the umbrella of the government-run agency, the Sudan Council of Voluntary Agencies (SCOVA). The government of Sudan has also established the Disaster Management and Refugee Studies Institute (DIMARSI) to train trainers on mine awareness in conflict zones in Sudan.

A pilot project has been funded by Rädda Barnen (Sweden), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), OXFAM, and UNICEF aimed at training trainers in child-to-child mine awareness education in the east of Kassala. With total funding of US$75,000, members of the Sudan Red Crescent Society provide child-to-child mine awareness training and promote ratification of the Mine Ban Treaty.[45]

In southern Sudan, OSIL-Sudan with assistance from UNICEF and other humanitarian organizations conducts mine risk education activities in conflict zones in the Sudan.[46] The OSIL program focuses on children and returning refugees and targets approximately 300,000 residents in mine-risk areas.

Landmine Casualties

Landmine victim statistics are not systematically collected. The Ministry of Foreign Affaits contends that 70,000 people have been killed or injured by landmines.[47] This number has not been verified. The ICRC has reported 5,000 amputees registered in their hospitals.[48] Sudan’s large size and poor infrastructure place mine victims at extreme risk. Most victims die before reaching health care facilities, which may account for the relatively small number of amputees registered at the various centers.[49]

Landmine Survivor Assistance

Sudan is a huge country with poor infrastructure. Mine victims are most often from rural areas many hundreds of miles from the nearest treatment center. In addition, in southern Sudan, the most affected area, there are very few facilities that can take care of the victims.

The government of Sudan provides its military personnel with medical care. Civilian medical facilities and hospitals in government-controlled areas usually lack basic equipment, staff and resources. Satellite workshops in southern Sudan government-controlled towns of Juba and Wau assemble the prosthetic devices, fit them and provide physical therapy for civilians. In Khartoum, there is a national prosthetics and orthopedics center run by the Ministry of Social Planning and the Sudanese Armed Forces, with the support of the ICRC. The center provides assistance to civilian and military war victims, including landmine casualties. There is also a small prosthetics workshop in Kassala run by the Sudanese Disabled Care and Rehabilitation Society.

In August 1998, the government of Sudan provided 2 million Sudanese Dinars (around US$8,000) for mine victims, distributed by $200 to the family of a deceased, $120 to the family of a totally disabled person and $100 to the family of a partially disabled victim.[50]

Between January and September 1999, the ICRC manufactured 357 prostheses and 56 orthoses at the National Center for Prostheses and Orthoses in Khartoum and at the prosthetic/orthotic workshop in Lopiding hospital.[51]

Basic infrastructure and public services in southern Sudan are practically non-existent. Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) operates four hospitals in SPLA-held southern Sudan. The hospital in Yei, which treats landmine victims, has been deliberately targeted by government planes, which bombed it twelve times in 1998, and five times in 1999, inflicting substantial damage to the operating theater and maternity ward and forced the hospital to close temporarily. NPA also runs emergency mobile units.

Medicins Sans Frontiers Holland operates a hospital in Kajo Keiji on the Sudan side of the border with Uganda that treats landmine victims. The ICRC maintains an important hospital to treat patients, including many mine victims, in Lopiding, Kenya. The facility serves those injured in southern Sudan, both combatants and civilians. It also serves Kenyans with grave medical conditions. The Sudan Evangelical Mission (SEM) has attempted to provide prosthetic support by bringing technicians from Nairobi-based Jaipur Foot Project to Southern Sudan to assess the needs of amputees.[52]

In 1999, the SPLM demanded that NGOs working in areas under SPLA control sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the SPLM. Eleven humanitarian organizations, including MSF refused to sign the SPLM document and were forced to withdraw from SPLA areas by 1 March 2000. Five of the non-signatories have since acceded to the MoU and begun the return process.

Psychological and social support facilities for mine victims are inadequate, if available, in southern Sudan. Some counseling and social support services are available at the ICRC-supported facilities at Lochichogio and at the UNHCR refugee camp at Kakuma, Kenya managed by the Lutheran World Federation and the International Rescue Committee. The Church Ecumenical Action in South Sudan assists in rehabilitation efforts in southern Sudan focusing on self-sufficiency to improve the livelihood of the most vulnerable people.[53]

<SIERRA LEONE | TANZANIA >

[1] Gabriel Rorech, State Minister of Foreign Relations, mentioned the committee in a meeting with Suzanne Askelof, Secretary General, Rädda Barnen (Save the Children-Sweden) on 5 February 2000.
[2] Statement by Ambassador Awad M. Hassan, Director-General, Department of Disarmament, Ministry of External Relations to the First Meeting of States Parties, Maputo, 3-7 May 1999.
[3] Letter from Ambassador Mubarak H. Rahamtalla, Deputy Permanent Representative, Republic of Sudan Permanent Mission to the United Nations, New York, to Landmine Monitor/Human Rights Watch, Ref. SUGA/3-1/2, 31 July 2000.
[4] Ibid.
[5] The Sudan Campaign to Ban Landmines was established in November 1997 and is composed of nongovernmental organizations including Sudanese Development Association, Sudanese Red Crescent, Disaster Management and Refugee Studies Institute, Relief Assistance for Southern Sudan, Rädda Barnen, Oxfam U.K., and Action Disabled Development. There is cooperation with the ICRC, UNICEF, and members from government departments including the Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC) and the National Council for Child Welfare.
[6] Operation Save Innocent Lives (OSIL-Sudan/Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association), Nairobi-Kenya, “Landmine Information-Sudan,” signed by Aleu Ayieny Aleu, Director, OSIL-Sudan, dated 8 January 1999, p. 2.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Otunnu was reported to have secured a ban on use of landmines in the south of the country by both parties to the conflict. See “Sudan’s Warring Parties Agree to Stop Using Landmines,” Reuters, Nairobi, 11 March 1999.
[9] Emphasis added. “Arms Flows to Central Africa/Great Lakes,” Fact Sheet released by the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, U.S. Department of State, November 1999, www.state.gov/www/global/arms/bureau_9911_armsflows.html.
[10] OSIL, “Landmine Information-Sudan,” 8 January 1999, p. 2.
[11] Human Rights Watch, Sudan: Global Trade, Local Impact: Arms Transfers to all Sides in the Civil War in Sudan, (Human Rights Watch: New York, August 1998), p. 39, 40.
[12] The Uganda-Sudan Agreement was signed in Nairobi on 8 December 1999. See also PANA, 9 December 1999.
[13] For details, see Landmine Monitor Report 1999, pp. 171-172.
[14] The assessment was carried out by Rae MacGrath, founder of the Mines Advisory Group. No report has been made yet but Mr. McGrath made a presentation of his findings in Sharga Hall, University of Khartoum, 25 July 1999.
[15] United States Council of Refugees Survey, 9 September 1999.
[16] United Nations Department of Humanitarian Affairs, Mine Clearance Policy Unit, “The Landmine Situation in Sudan: Assessment Mission Report,” August 1997, p. 7.
[17] Human Rights Watch interviews with witnesses to casualties caused by government-laid land mines, Kenya-Sudan border, August 1999.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Statement by Mr. Ali Numeri, State Minister of Foreign Relations, Khartoum, 1 March 1999.
[20] David Nailo Mayo, Landmine Monitor interview with Aleu Ayiney Aleu, Managing Director, OSIL-Sudan at the Christian Aid Office, London, 4 April 2000. Data collected in Chudukum from eyewitness accounts, letters from residents of Chukudum, secondary sources and a standard questionnaire completed by field researchers between July 1999 and May 2000.
[21] Data collected in Chudukum from eyewitness accounts, letters from residents of Chukudum, secondary sources and a standard questionnaire completed by field researchers between July 1999 and May 2000.
[22] Agence France-Presse, 19 February 2000.
[23] “Uganda: Northwest officials to send suspected Sudanese rebel commanders home,” The Monitor (newspaper), as reported by BBC Worldwide Monitoring, 22 January 2000.
[24] The NDA, at its height, included the Beja Congress, the Democratic Unionist Party, the SPLA/M, the Sudan Alliance Forces, the Umma Party and the United Federal Defence forces.
[25] Mohamed Osman, “Hundreds of thousands of Eritrean refugees expected in Sudan,” Associated Press (el-Lafa Camp, Sudan), 22 May 2000.
[26] Dr. Hussein El-Obeid, “Socio-econmic Impact of Landmines in Kassala State Assessment,” September 1999. Eighty-eight percent of incidents occurred on rural roads indicating that they were caused by AT mine use and 93 percent of the victims were civilian. In April 1999, Dr. El-Obeid left the Government of Sudan’s Humanitarian Aid Commission in and is now an independent consultant.
[27] Sudan News Agency (SUNA), 10 April 2000.
[28] Sudanese Red Crescent; Al-Ra’yal Alam (Arabic-Sudanese newspaper) 24 and 31 May 2000.
[29] Human Rights Watch interview with Ali El Safi, Beja Relief Organization, Kampala, Uganda, 17 July 2000.
[30] UNDHA, “The Landmine Situation in Sudan,” Annex G: Areas and Roads reported mined, August 1997.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Human Rights Watch, Sudan: Global Trade, Local Impact: Arms Transfers to all Sides in the Civil War in Sudan (New York: Human Rights Watch, August 1998).
[33] Sudan Campaign to Ban Landmines, “Kassala Assessment Mission Report,” August 1998.
[34] Dr. Hussein El-Obeid, “Socio-econmic Impact of Lanmines in Kassala State Assessment,” September 1999.
[35] No report has been made yet but Rae McGrath made a presentation of his findings in Sharga Hall, University of Khartoum, 25 July 1999.
[36] Annex I: HAC report, Sudan Mine Action Programme, July 1997, in UNDHA, “The Landmine Situation in Sudan,” August 1997.
[37] Annex A: Request for Assistance dated 25 January 1997, in UNDHA, “The Landmine Situation in Sudan,” August 1997. See also Statement by Ambassador Awad M. Hassan, Director-General, Department of Disarmament, Ministry of External Relations to the First Meeting of States Parties, Maputo, 3-7 May 1999.
[38] IGAD Partners Forum-Sudan Committee, “Planing for Peace, an Action Plan,” 13 March 2000.
[39] Sudan Peoples [sic] Liberation Army (SPLM) [sic] General Headquarters, New Kush – Himan, “Resolution on problem posed by proliferation of anti-personnel mines in liberated parts of new Sudan,” signed by CDR Salva Knr Mayardit, Deputy Chairman, NLC/NEC (SPLM) and SPLA Chief of General Staff, dated 1 November 1996.
[40] OSIL lists the following international and non-governmental NGOs as sponsors of their mine action program: Christian Aid, Dan Church Aid EZE, Trocaire, UNICEF/OLS, Mine Advisory Group UK, Swiss Basler Mission, OXFAM Quebec, ICCO and CAMEO. OSIL, “Case Study: SPLA (NSA) and Landmines- Sudan,” 1 March 2000, p.7.
[41] OSIL, “Case Study: SPLA (NSA) and Landmines- Sudan,” 1 March 2000, p. 7.
[42] Ibid., p. 5; UK Working Group on Landmines, Special Update 15, July 2000.
[43] Chege Mbitiru, “Mines endure as deadly reminder of Sudanese civil war,” Associated Press (Yei, Sudan), 14 July 1999.
[44] Information provided by MAG, email to Landmine Monitor/HRW, 28 July 2000.
[45] Hajir Mussa Kheir, “Proceeings of the Workshop on the Menace of Landmines in the Horn of Africa,” The Institute for Practical Research and Training, Hargeisa, 23-24 November, 1999.
[46] This is according to OSIL-Sudan/SRRA, “Landmines Information-Sudan,” p. 5.
[47] Ali Numeri, State Minister of Foreign Relations, “Statement on the occasion of the entry into force of the Mine Ban Treaty, 1 March 1999.”
[48] www. icrc.org; OSIL, Case Study: SPLA (NSA) and Landmines-Sudan, 1 March, 2000.
[49] Chege Mbitiru, “Mines endure as deadly reminder of Sudanese civil war,” Associated Press (Yei, Sudan), 14 July 1999.
[50] The funds come from the Zakat funds, an Islamic charity that collects money from the rich and redistributes to the needy. In Sudan this is done through the Zakat Chamber, under the umbvrella of the Ministry of Social Planning.
[51] ICRC, “Fact Sheet: ICRC in Sudan,” 26 January 2000, www.icrc.org.
[52] Interview with Reverend Lexson Awad, Director, Sudan Evangelical Mission, Nairobi, 8 January 1999.
[53] Church of Ecumenical Action in Sudan (CEAS) Annual Report, 1996.