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]
[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.