Mine Ban Treaty Article 5 deadline: 1 January 2015
(Missed deadline but subsequently completed clearance) 

Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 4 deadline: 1 September 2021
(On track to meet deadline)

Recommendations for action

• Mozambique should complete survey and verification of cluster munition remnant contamination to declare itself in compliance with Article 4 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions at the earliest possible date.
• Mozambique should ensure the national mine action database is accurate, up to date, and effectively managed by national authorities.
• Greater efforts should be made to ensure reporting and recording of mine action data according to International Mine Action Standards (IMAS) land release terminology.

Contamination

The Republic of Mozambique announced it had completed clearance of antipersonnel mines on its territory in September 2015. It had no specific areas confirmed to contain cluster munition remnants as of 31 December 2014. However, Mozambique does have residual contamination from other explosive remnants of war (ERW).

Mine contamination

On 17 September 2015, Mozambique announced it had completed clearance of antipersonnel mines on its territory.[1] In a public ceremony, Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Minister Oldemiro Baloi declared the country to be free of the “threat” of mines following survey and clearance of more than 3,000 areas across a total of over 55km² in 2008–2014, with the destruction of more than 86,000 antipersonnel mines. Mozambique was once one of the most heavily mined countries in the world, and major demining operations, which began in 1993, concluded after 22 years in 2015.[2]

Mozambique was contaminated with mines, mostly antipersonnel, as a legacy of nearly 30 years of conflict that ended in 1992. Mozambique made considerable progress in clearing mined areas and was planning to complete all clearance by 31 December 2014, in accordance with its extended Article 5 deadline under the Mine Ban Treaty. However, Mozambique failed to meet its 1 January 2015 deadline, as of when almost 290,000m² of confirmed and suspected mined areas still remained.[3]

Of this, five confirmed hazardous areas (CHAs) containing antipersonnel mines covered a total of 171,000m² while 51 suspected hazardous areas (SHAs) had a total size of 118,000m².[4] Contamination was located in three provinces—Inhambane, Manica, and Sofala—as set out in the table below. 

Contamination by province as of end 2014[5]

In 2014, the remaining mine contamination was mostly in small nuisance minefields in remote areas, around former military positions, and around a number of infrastructure sites, blocking access to agricultural land and infrastructure. All high-priority mined areas with humanitarian impact were cleared prior to 2014, with the exception of the dense pattern mine belt around the Cahora Bassa dam in Tete province; sections of the Rhodesian “cordon sanitaire” border minefields that extended into Mozambique’s Tete and Manica provinces; and the defensive mine belts placed around power lines in Maputo, Manica, and Sofala provinces.[6]

The clearance of antipersonnel mines in Mozambique has had significant socio-economic benefits for the country, enabling development investment in support of natural resource mining, agriculture, and infrastructure construction, while also directly contributing to Mozambique’s national Poverty Reduction Action Plan. Other benefits from clearance include increased mobility and opportunities for cross-border trade for local populations along the Mozambique-Zimbabwe border and longer-term benefits for rural communities through improved access to health and education services and facilitating their expansion.[7] 

On 17 February 2015, Mozambique provided an update to States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty on its remaining contamination and the factors that had prevented it from meeting its Article 5 deadline. It announced that it would complete clearance of all remaining contaminated areas by the end of September 2015 and “certainly no later than the end of November 2015.”[8]

Cluster munition contamination 

Cluster munitions are reported to have been used on “a limited scale” during the war in Mozambique.[9] In its initial Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 7 transparency report in 2013, Mozambique indicated that the extent of areas contaminated by cluster munition remnants was not known, although it reported that cluster munitions had been used in seven provinces: Gaza, Manica, Maputo, Niassa, Sofala, Tete, and Zambezia.[10] A small number of cluster munition remnants, including both RBK-250 containers and unexploded submunitions, such as Rhodesian-manufactured Alpha bomblets, were found in 2005–2012 in Guro and Gondola district of Manica province, in Boane district of Maputo province, in Mabalane district of Gaza province, and in Changara and Chifunde districts in Tete province. All these cluster munition remnants were destroyed.[11] In 2012, Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) and HALO Trust found a total of 25 Alpha bomblets in Chifunde and Changara districts in Tête province and Gondola district in Manica province, which were subsequently destroyed in 2013.[12]

In September 2014, Mozambique informed States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions of its belief that most of the resultant contamination had already been cleared as part of Mozambique’s ongoing mine and ERW clearance efforts.[13] According to the National Demining Institute (IND), the risk posed by cluster munition remnants to the civilian population is limited and there have been no reports of any accidents from submunitions.[14]

Other explosive remnants of war

Mozambique also has residual contamination from mines and unexploded ordinance (UXO). ERW incidents have occurred in rural areas in the course of everyday community activities.[15] The IND’s 2015 annual work plan included an objective to “establish and implement mechanisms for the management of risks from residual UXO and other ERW.”[16]

Program Management 

The IND serves as the national mine action center in Mozambique. It reports to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Provincial demining commissions have been created to assist in planning mine action operations. Since 1999, UNDP has provided technical assistance; currently, support is provided under a three-year program due to expire in 2015.[17]

Operators 

Mozambique has four international mine clearance operators in country: APOPO, HALO Trust, Handicap International, and NPA. Demining has also been conducted by the Mozambican Army and a number of commercial operators. 

In accordance with Mozambique’s National Mine Action Plan, NGO operators were encouraged to increase their capacity in 2014 to accelerate remaining survey and clearance activities in order to meet Mozambique’s end 2014 Article 5 deadline. This resulted in an increased number of manual deminers, mechanical assets, and mine detection animals (mine detection dogs and mine detection rats), in comparison to capacity in 2013.[18]

In 2014, APOPO employed more than 220 staff and deployed six mechanical demining sections, six sections of mine detection rat teams, and 16 sections of manual deminers.[19] HALO increased its capacity from 24 to 38 manual sections while continuing to deploy four mechanical teams, with a total peak program size of close to 430 national staff, in order to complete the dense border minefields in Tete province by the end of the year.[20] HI’s capacity comprised of 60 deminers; seven mechanical assets, including two Hitachi demining machines on loan from the IND; and five mine detection dog teams until September 2014, when it reduced capacity to 40 deminers and six machines in accordance with the decreasing size of remaining tasks towards the end of the year.[21] NPA employed a total of 54 deminers in 2014. It did not deploy any mechanical assets and scaled down its operations sizably in 2015, retaining 11 staff until July.[22] The IND had two Hitachi BM307-V24 demining machines and one Mini-Minewolf MW240, which it loaned to operators during the year, and a JCB armored excavator as of January 2015.[23] 

In 2014, five commercial demining operators were contracted by the IND to conduct clearance and technical survey: Bicmut-Desminagem, Empresa Mocambicana de Desminagem, Mine Kills Mocambique, Monechecha, and Moprotector.[24]

In 2014, APOPO and NPA were the only operators involved in cluster munition survey and clearance. APOPO deployed one manual clearance team with embedded survey capacity to an area of cluster munition contamination identified by an NPA survey.[25] NPA’s survey team in Tete consisted of four personnel.[26]

Information management

Mozambique has a national Information Management System for Mine Action (IMSMA) database housed within and fully managed by the IND, with technical support from NPA.[27] A new version of IMSMA was released in 2014.[28]

IND and NPA continued efforts throughout 2014 to coordinate and improve the reliability and accuracy of operator data.[29] Nonetheless, discrepancies between the figures operators reported directly to NPA and those contained in the IMSMA database for 2014 operations were significant and recurrent. The IND reported that while efforts had been made to harmonize reporting and increase use of land release terminology according to IMAS, it had not been possible to reach agreement between all operators on land release terminology, such as survey, clearance, cancellation, reduction, and confirmed and suspected hazardous areas, as some operators employed land release methodology while others did not.[30] In addition, as late as mid-May 2015 the IND was still awaiting final completion reports for 2014 from some operators.[31]

National mine action standards

In September 2013, the IND reported it was revising its national mine action standards to include specific guidance on clearance of cluster munition remnants.[32]

Deminer safety

In 2014, four separate demining accidents occurred among HALO Trust deminers working on sections of the Rhodesian cordon sanitaire border minefield in Tete province.[33] Investigations by HALO and the IND could not identify a common factor between the incidents, though three of the incidents resulted in the dismissal of the deminer concerned for not following HALO’s standing operating procedures.[34] According to the IND, the accidents were likely a reflection of the intensity of the demining operations along a very dense and complicated minefield containing minimum-metal mines.[35]

Land Release (Mines) 

The total area released in 2014 was just over 6.3km2, of which 3.5km2 was mined areas released by clearance and technical survey,[36] while a further 2.8km2 was cancelled by non-technical survey.[37]

Survey in 2014 (mines)

According to operator and IND data, a total of just over 2.8km2 was cancelled and another 2.4km2 confirmed as mined by non-technical survey in 2014, and a further 0.5km2 reduced through technical survey (see table below).[38]

Survey in 2014

Clearance in 2014 (mines)

A total of just over 3km² of mined area was reported as having been cleared in 2014, with the destruction of nearly 45,700 antipersonnel mines, six antivehicle mines, and 250 items of UXO (see table below).[47]

Mine clearance in 2014

Land Release (Cluster Munition Remnants) 

The total cluster munition-contaminated area released by clearance and technical survey in 2014 was approximately 350,000m². In June 2014, NPA’s survey teams identified a confirmed hazardous area with at least six visible Alpha bomblets in Cahora-Bassa district in Tete province. The contaminated area was estimated to total approximately 240,000m². APOPO was tasked by the IND to clear the area by the end of 2014.[58] After additional survey and clearance in October and November, APOPO cleared a total of 349,453m²,destroying 12 Alpha submunitions.[59]

Following survey and clearance in 2014, no other confirmed areas requiring clearance or suspected areas requiring survey had been identified as of May 2015. The IND has reported that a mix of additional non-technical and technical survey would be used to confirm that areas already cleared do not contain any cluster munition remnants as a process of verification in order to ensure compliance with Article 4 “by no later than 2016.”[60]

Treaty Compliance

Mine Ban Treaty Article 5 compliance

Under Article 5 of the Mine Ban Treaty (and in accordance with its second extension for a period of 10 months granted by States Parties in December 2013), Mozambique was required to destroy all antipersonnel mines in mined areas under its jurisdiction or control as soon as possible, but not later than 1 January 2015. In June 2014, despite indications that it was not on track to meet its deadline, Mozambique failed to request another extension at the Mine Ban Treaty Third Review Conference in Maputo, and was in violation of the Convention from 1 January 2015, when its Article 5 deadline expired, until it completed clearance in September 2015. Mozambique received a no-cost extension from donors to complete clearance activities in 2015. 

In February 2015, Mozambique reported that it failed to meet its extension deadline due to three primary factors. The first was ongoing “low-intensity military hostilities creating a situation of temporary insecurity” between January and August 2014 in Manica and Sofala provinces, which prevented access to some mined areas and caused logistical and transportation difficulties. Second, it stated that continuing insecurity raised transportation and logistical costs, resulting in delays and reduced productivity in certain areas as teams and equipment had to take longer, alternative routes to reach affected areas.[61] Third, some demining tasks in Manica and Sofala provinces were suspended due to heavy rains in December 2014.[62] Mozambique submitted a comprehensive and detailed progress report to States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty on its activities in 2014 and its plans and capacity to complete the remaining clearance in 2015.[63]

Following its announcement of completing the last antipersonnel mine clearance task on its territory in September 2015, Mozambique was expected to make a formal declaration of compliance with its Mine Ban Treaty Article 5 obligations and submit a report to the Article 5 Committee at the next meeting of States Parties in December 2015.[64]

According to the IND, due to the nature of the mine contamination in Mozambique and the lack of mine maps, there is a residual risk of finding mines after Mozambique’s declaration of compliance with Article 5. In May 2015, the IND reported that it was working with the government to establish a sustainable national capacity to manage any residual risk, in accordance with its National Mine Action Plan.[65] IND has reported that additional funding will be needed for future ERW-related projects, as well as for training and equipping a national capacity to manage residual contamination.[66]

Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 4 compliance

Under Article 4 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Mozambique is required to destroy all cluster munition remnants in areas under its jurisdiction or control as soon as possible, but not later than 1 September 2021. Mozambique should fulfil its Article 4 obligations well in advance of its treaty deadline. 

In April 2015, the IND reiterated the government’s commitment to ensure compliance with Article 4 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions by “no later than the end of 2016,” and declare clearance complete following additional non-technical survey and verification.[67]

Mozambique initially stated it might need until 2021 to clear all cluster munition remnants as the full extent of the problem was unknown.[68] At the Fourth Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, however, Mozambique reported its belief that it could complete its clearance obligations by the end of 2016, depending on further survey.[69] It has since reiterated it is on track to complete cluster munition clearance on several occasions by the end of 2016, including at the Fifth Meeting of States Parties in September 2014.