Contaminated by: antipersonnel mines (light contamination) and other unexploded ordnance (UXO, residual contamination).

Mine Ban Treaty Article 5 Deadline: 1 January 2015
(Declared completion but has outstanding mined areas)

Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 4 deadline: 1 September 2021
(Clearance completed in 2016)

Summary

After the Republic of Mozambique formally declared completion of its clearance of antipersonnel mines in December 2015, three previously unidentified areas contaminated by antipersonnel mines were identified in 2016 and 2017 totaling 85,000m². Clearance of these areas was completed on 29 May 2017. Four small suspected mined areas with a combined size of 1,881m² remained submerged under water. These areas are “suspended” and Mozambique plans to address them once the water level has receded and access can be gained.

The remaining 1.2km² of cluster munition contamination was identified and cleared in 2016. Mozambique informed the Secretariat of the Convention on Cluster Munitions of completion of cluster munition clearance in December 2016.

Recommendations for action

• Mozambique should ensure a sufficient clearance capacity remains in place to deal with mine or explosive remnants of war (ERW) contamination.
• Mozambique should ensure that the national mine action database is maintained.
• Mozambique should continue to monitor the “suspended” areas that are submerged under water and address them as soon as they become accessible.

Mine Contamination

Mozambique formally declared compliance with its Article 5 obligations at the Mine Ban Treaty 14^th Meeting of States Parties in December 2015, after announcing its completion of antipersonnel mine clearance on 17 September 2015.[1] In a public ceremony, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, 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 more than 55km² in 2008–2014 and the destruction of over 86,000 antipersonnel mines.[2]

In March 2016, international demining NGO APOPO, which remained in country after September 2015 and responded to a number of isolated mine and ERW tasks in southern, central, and northern provinces of Mozambique in coordination with the National Demining Institute (IND), identified a mined area covering 63,000m² during non-technical survey in Nangade district, Cabo Delgado province, near the border with Tanzania.[3]

Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA), which was clearing the last remaining cluster munition remnants in the country in 2016, secured funding to clear the mined area in early 2017. After clearance operations began in February 2017, subsequent investigation by NPA identified two further mined areas nearby, one covering approximately 14,000m² and a second with an estimated size of 8,000m².[4] Clearance of all areas was completed on 29 May 2017, with a total of just under 139,000m² released, and the destruction of 115 antipersonnel mines and three items of UXO.[5]

According to the IND, four small suspected mined areas with a combined size of 1,881m² remain underwater in Inhambane province.[6] At the Mine Ban Treaty intersessional meetings in June 2017, Mozambique informed States Parties it would reassess the status of the submerged areas during the month and reiterated its commitment that the remaining areas would be continuously monitored and addressed once the water level receded and access could be gained.[7] The IND visited the areas in June 2017 and confirmed they remained submerged and inaccessible.[8]

Mozambique previously reported the existence of “suspended” mined areas in its declaration of completion of Article 5 obligations submitted in December 2015, which it defined as “suspected hazard areas that remain seasonally or permanently submerged under water in Inhambane province.” It further stated that all suspended areas “were subjected to technical survey and clearance up to the water line during the annual dry season with no direct evidence found to confirm the presence of mines in any of these areas. Nevertheless, the portion of the suspected hazardous areas (SHAs) that remains underwater will be marked and regularly monitored to confirm if the area ever dries enough to allow further technical survey.”[9]

Mozambique was contaminated with mines, mostly antipersonnel, as a legacy of nearly 30 years of conflict that ended in 1992. Mozambique also has residual contamination from ERW, including UXO. The IND has reported that 47 items of UXO were destroyed in 2016.[10]

According to NPA, the mined area identified in 2016 in Nangade district had both a social and economic impact on the local border community, whose economic activity primarily consists of small scale cross-border trade on a key transit route between Tanzania and Mozambique.[11] Clearance of the mined area ensures safe passage of individuals between the two countries, and for the community of Mungano, the nearest settlement to the minefield, frees extra land for cultivation, and allows children to attend the Mungano primary school, located only 20 meters from the minefield, without the fear of landmines.[12]

Cluster Munition Contamination

The remaining 1.2km² of cluster munition contamination was identified and cleared in 2016, including nine areas covering 0.98km² in Manica province and one area with a size of nearly 0.25km² in Tete province.[13]

At the end of 2014, Mozambique had no known areas confirmed to contain cluster munition remnants. However, the IND asked NPA to undertake a cluster munition remnants survey in the second half of 2015 in Gaza, Manica, and Tete provinces, targeting specific communities. According to the IND, this was intended as a mix of additional non-technical and technical survey to confirm that areas where clearance had already been carried out did not contain any cluster munition remnants and with a view to ensuring completion of clearance “by no later than 2016.”[14]

Cluster munitions are reported to have been used on “a limited scale” during the 1977–1992 war in Mozambique.[15] In 2013, Mozambique reported that the extent of areas contaminated by cluster munition remnants was not known, though it noted that cluster munitions had been used in seven provinces: Gaza, Manica, Maputo, Niassa, Sofala, Tete, and Zambezia.[16] A small number of RBK-250 cluster munition containers and unexploded submunitions, notably Rhodesian-manufactured Alpha bomblets, were found in Gaza, Manica, Maputo, and Tete provinces in 2005–2014.[17] Mozambique asserted that most of the resultant cluster munition remnants had already been destroyed during mine and ERW clearance by 2014.[18]

Clearance of the remaining cluster munition contamination was reported to have a direct and immediate socio-economic impact on the communities living in and around the areas, whose main livelihood activities were subsistence farming and agriculture. The released land was being put to use for agricultural cultivation and animal husbandry.[19]

Other explosive remnants of war

Mozambique also has other ERW. Incidents have occurred in rural areas in the course of everyday community activities.[20] The IND reported that 47 items of UXO were destroyed in 2016.[21]

Program Management

The IND serves as the national mine action center in Mozambique, reporting to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Provincial demining commissions have also been created to assist in planning mine action operations. Beginning in 1999, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) provided technical assistance to the IND, most recently under a three-year program that ended in 2015.[22]

As of mid-2016, the UNDP no longer had a budget for mine action-related activities in Mozambique.[23] At the same time, amid a growing national economic crisis, the government put in place strict austerity measures that saw financial support to the IND reduced drastically. The lack of sufficient funding resulted in the institution being downsized during the year, with only key staff remaining at the start of 2017.[24] NPA expressed concern at the IND’s lack of resources and its ability to maintain a capacity to address residual mine and ERW contamination.[25]

Strategic planning

A “National Strategy on Management of Residual Contamination 2015–2017” was submitted to the government for adoption in 2015. It calls for Mozambique’s national capacities to be “developed and structured to respond to the anticipated residual contamination problems in the most effective and efficient manner,” and sets three goals: the establishment of a national ERW center; the development of sustainable national explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) capacity; and creation of an information management system to facilitate coordination and information sharing between stakeholders.[26] The document, however, was not adopted by the government, and as of August 2017, the IND was still pushing for it to be approved.[27] According to the IND, under the plan, provincial police units are foreseen to address any future residual contamination.[28]

Operators

In 2016, Mozambique had two international demining operators in country: international NGOs APOPO and NPA. During the year, APOPO maintained a presence of approximately 50 personnel, primarily to clear ammunition around the Malhazine weapons depot in Maputo city. It seconded personnel for ad hoc survey, EOD, and clearance of residual risk tasks on a call-out basis.[29]

While NPA’s operations in 2016 were to carry out cluster munition clearance only, from February to end-May 2017, NPA deployed two teams of a total of 16 deminers to conduct manual clearance of the mined area identified in Nangade.[30]

In April 2017, APOPO closed its program in Mozambique after it was unable to secure funding to complete its ammunition clearance operations at the Malhazine weapons depot complex.[31] Following an official handover ceremony on 1 June 2017, NPA demobilized its mine clearance operations in Nangade district. It stated that no new reports of suspected mined areas in Nangade district, or in the wider Cabo Delgado province, were received.[32]

Quality management

The IND stated that only limited quality assurance (QA) activities, primarily to APOPO’s ammunition clearance operations at the Malhazine depot, could be undertaken during the year.[33] APOPO reported, however, that there was regular coordination and cooperation with the IND on all residual risk tasks.[34] In its operations in Nangade, NPA stated that in addition to regular internal QA and quality control (QC) activities, external QA was provided by IND QA officers in the form of a one-week QA visit in April 2017.[35]

Information management

In 2016, the Information Management System for Mine Action (IMSMA) database remained with the IND and was managed by two information management staff at the IND’s office in Maputo. The IND had reported plans to shift responsibility of the IMSMA database to a government ministry; however, as of August 2017, this had not been formalized, and the future of the database remained uncertain.[36]

Land Release (mines)

According to Mozambique, in April 2016, following two suspected mine incidents in Nangade district, Cabo Delgado province, a mined area covering an estimated 63,000m² was confirmed through non-technical and technical survey carried out by APOPO and IND survey teams along the Mozambique-Tanzania border.[37]

NPA began clearance activities on the 63,000m² area at Mungano in Nangade on 1 February 2017. Following completion of clearance of that mined area, further investigation by technical survey identified two additional mined areas, one with a size of 14,000m² in Chicamba village, approximately 3.5km from Mungano, and a third area with a size of 8,000m², some 500 meters from the larger minefield at Mungano, which, according to NPA, formed part of an old mine belt at the Mozambique-Tanzania border.[38] Clearance of all areas was completed on 29 May 2017, with a total of 138,958m² released, including 7,537m² by manual clearance and 27,885m² by technical survey, with the destruction of 115 antipersonnel mines and three items of UXO.[39]

In January–September 2015, the total hazardous area released was 0.45km², almost all through clearance and technical survey, with an additional 7,700m² canceled by non-technical survey, as major clearance operations came to a close in Mozambique.[40]

In September 2015–October 2016, APOPO also responded to 11 tasks in Cabo Delgado, Gaza, Manica, Maputo, and Sofala provinces, surveying a total of more than 110,000m² of SHA.[41] In addition to identifying the significant mined area in Nangade, APOPO reported destroying two antipersonnel mines during clearance of just over 2,100m² in a task in Massingir district, Gaza province at the end of 2015, and destruction of a total of 13 items of UXO across all 11 tasks.[42] According to the IND, antipersonnel mines were also destroyed by police trained to conduct EOD after the completion of clearance was announced.[43]

Land Release (cluster munition remnants)

As a result of its targeted survey operations to address the remaining cluster munition contamination in Gaza, Manica, and Tete provinces in 2015–2016, NPA reported canceling three suspected hazardous areas in Tete province, with a size of 155,897m^2, and confirming 10 areas, with a combined size of just over 1.2km². Nine of these areas were located in Manica province (total size 979,766m²) and one area in Tete province (251,300m²).[44]

By November 2016, NPA had cleared all the contaminated areas it had confirmed to contain cluster munition remnants, as reported above, releasing a total of 1,231,066m² of cluster munition-contaminated area, and in the process destroying 145 submunitions and 22 other items of UXO. It also reported destroying 50 antipersonnel mines during BAC operations in Manica province; it said the mines had not been emplaced, but were scattered on the ground at a former military base.[45]

Mine Ban Treaty Article 5 Compliance

On 1 December 2015, at the Mine Ban Treaty Fourteenth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva, Mozambique officially declared completion of its Article 5 obligations to destroy all antipersonnel mines in mined areas under its jurisdiction or control. However, subsequently three further mined area were identified. These areas were cleared by May 2017.

Under Article 5 of the Mine Ban Treaty (and in accordance with its second extension granted by States Parties in December 2013), Mozambique was required to destroy all antipersonnel mines in mined areas under its jurisdiction or control no later than 1 January 2015. It was not able to meet this deadline, and was therefore in violation of the treaty from 1 January to September 2015, when it announced completion during a public event in Maputo.

Mozambique reported that it had failed to meet its extended 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 had raised logistical costs, resulting in delays and reduced productivity in certain areas as teams and equipment had to take longer routes to reach affected areas.[46] Third, some demining tasks in Manica and Sofala provinces were suspended due to heavy rains in December 2014.[47] Mozambique submitted a comprehensive and detailed progress report to Mine Ban Treaty States Parties on its activities in 2014 and its plans and capacity to complete remaining clearance in 2015.[48]

Mozambique stated in its declaration of completion of its Article 5 obligations that if previously unknown areas of mine contamination were subsequently discovered, it would:

• Immediately inform States Parties of any discovery and report any mined areas in accordance with its Article 7 transparency obligations and at Mine Ban Treaty meetings;
• Ensure the effective exclusion of civilians from any contaminated areas;
• Destroy all antipersonnel mine contamination as soon as possible; and
• If it cannot destroy all contamination in the mined area before the next Meeting of States Parties, submit a request for another extended Article 5 clearance deadline in accordance with its obligations as a Mine Ban Treaty State Party.[49]

While noting that it had not followed the course indicated in its declaration of completion by failing to inform Mine Ban Treaty States Parties of the discovery of additional contamination at the subsequent Meeting of States Parties in December 2016, or to submit a request for another extended Article 5 clearance deadline, Mozambique reported in detail on the discovery of the mined area in Nangade in its Article 7 transparency report submitted in April 2017 and informed States Parties of its identification and clearance in June 2017, at the treaty’s intersessional meetings.[50] Mozambique also announced that the IND would reassess the status of the remaining four submerged SHAs in Inhambane province and reiterated that the areas would be continuously monitored and cleared once access could be gained and the water level receded.[51] The IND visited the areas in June 2017 and confirmed they remained underwater and inaccessible for operations.[52]

Measures to maintain a capacity to address ERW and residual mine contamination

In late 2016, the UNDP reported that a number of key challenges remained in the phasing out Mozambique’s national mine action program. These included difficulties in digitalizing demining completion reports from NGO operators and the need for a back-up system to avoid the loss of data.[53] The transfer of the database, along with information management staff, to the Ministry of Land, Environment, and Rural Development and the proposed transfer of database copies for storage with the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of State Administration, had still to occur as of August 2017. The future of the IND, which employed 24 staff, also remained uncertain.[54]

According to the IND, due to the nature of the mine contamination in Mozambique and the lack of mine maps, the risk remained that mines would be found after Mozambique’s declaration of compliance with Article 5. After the completion of clearance in September 2015, the government of Mozambique embarked on training and equipping the provincial police to be able to respond to EOD call-outs. In total, as of October 2016, the IND had trained and certified 194 police officials from all provinces to handle residual threats, and provided provincial commanders with equipment such as personal protective kits, explosives, and metal detectors.[55]

The IND noted, however, the urgent need for the continuation of weapons and ammunition destruction at the Nacala arms depot and for BAC interventions at the Malhazine arms depot in Maputo, appealing to Mozambique’s development partners to continue to support initiatives to deal with these and other ammunition depots requiring clearance.[56]

The Monitor acknowledges the contributions of the Mine Action Review (www.mineactionreview.org), which has conducted the mine action research in 2017, including on survey and clearance, and shared all its resulting landmine and cluster munition reports with the Monitor. The Monitor is responsible for the findings presented online and in its print publications.