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Treaty Status | Management & Coordination | Impact (contamination & casualties) | Addressing the Impact (land release, risk education, victim assistance)

Country summary

Contamination from mines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) exists across Somalia’s three major regions: southcentral Somalia, including the capital Mogadishu; Puntland; and Somaliland, a self-proclaimed, though unrecognized, state that operates autonomously in the northwest. (See separate impact profile for Somaliland).

Most of the landmine contamination is along the border with Ethiopia. The full extent of the contamination is unknown.

In December 2015, the UN Mine Action Services (UNMAS) handed over responsibility for mine action coordination and management to the Somali Explosives Management Agency (SEMA). Mine action legislation and revised mine action standards were still pending adoption in 2020. As a result of the lack of parliamentary approval, SEMA had not received national funding and had relied on international support channeled through humanitarian clearance operators for staff salaries and running costs since 2017.[1]

Children and pastoral communities are considered as high-risk groups in Somalia. Children have represented the vast majority of casualties where the age group was known. Risk education is carried out by humanitarian demining organizations and UNMAS in cooperation with SEMA and local community groups in all five state regions of Somalia.

The availability of victim assistance services remained minimal, and those available lacked adequate provisions for the needs of survivors and persons with disabilities. Opportunities, for economic inclusion, psychosocial support, education, and employment were rare or close to non-existent. Healthcare and rehabilitation relied on support from international organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). A 2018 report on victim assistance found that rehabilitation services including prosthetics were estimated to respond to only 20% of people in need in Somalia. After years of inaction, victim assistance workshops were held in 2019, resulting in the drafting of a victim assistance action plan with multi-stakeholder input.

Treaty status

Treaty status overview

Clearance deadline extension requests

Somalia’s initial Mine Ban Treaty Article 5 clearance deadline is 1 October 2022. However Somalia was reported in March 2021 it was preparing an extension request.[2]

Somalia became a State Party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions in 2015 and reported clearance obligations in 2019. Its Article 4 clearance deadline is 1 March 2026. As of 2020, it was unclear whether Somalia would be able to meet its deadline.

Management and coordination

Mine action management and coordination

Mine action management and coordination overview[3]

Management

The Somali Explosives Management Agency (SEMA) was established in 2013 as the mine action center for southern Somalia, replacing the Somalia National Mine Action Authority created in 2011.[4] The SEMA was expected to assume a mandate with full responsibility for all mine action coordination by December 2015, but the legislative framework was not approved. UNMAS stopped funding SEMA at the beginning of 2016. Due to the lack of parliamentary approval, SEMA had not received any funding from the government and was petitioning for legislation to provide the necessary recognition of status for a dedicated state budget line.[5] Since 2017, Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) has been providing financial support to SEMA federal and state offices. It also supported SEMA to develop an annual budget proposal to the Ministry of Interior and Security (MoIS) for 2020.[6]

SEMA operates in Somalia through its five federal state members: the SEMA Puntland State Office,[7] SEMA Galmudug State Office, SEMA Hirshabelle State Office, SEMA South West State Office, and SEMA Jubaland Office.[8]

UNMAS coordinates humanitarian mine action activities under the umbrella of the Global Protection Cluster within the UN Country Team. Since 2015, it has reported that it supported the development of civilian-led clearance efforts along the Somali border with Ethiopia.[9]

Strategies and policies

In late 2017, a National Mine Action Strategic Plan for 2018–2020 was developed with input from SEMA, UNMAS, international operators, national NGO consortia, and international institutions. According to SEMA, the strategy was to be reviewed every six months.[10] The plan was reported to be consistent with the five-year national strategy document, the “Badbaado Plan for Multi-Year Explosive Hazard Management,” developed in 2015 by the Ministry of Internal Security and SEMA.[11] The plan addressed the Federal Government’s approach to explosive hazard management in line with the Somali obligations under the Mine Ban Treaty.

As of September 2020, the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) planned to support the update of the mine action strategy in Somalia.[12]

Legislation and standards

The revision of Somalia’s national standards and guidelines was completed in 2019. But, as of 2020, approval by the MoIS was pending.[13]

Information management

SEMA uses the Information Management System for Mine Action (IMSMA) and was working with GICHD to introduce the use of IMSMA core.[14] In 2017, ownership of the national IMSMA database was fully transferred from UNMAS to SEMA.

Somalia reported in 2017 that it was in the process of updating the information in the database according to a new country structure consisting of seven states and four levels (federal state, province, district, and village), as well as verification of historical UNMAS data.[15] This process was still ongoing in 2018 and 2019. In 2019 operators were reporting clearance by using the standard template, the data was added to the national database.[16]

National and global goals

Somalia’s National Development Plan 2017–2019 identified mine and ERW clearance as a crucial component of stabilization efforts in the national development process. Contamination was recognized as a hindrance to socio-economic development and a security concern for sustainable development initiatives.[17]

Risk education management and coordination

Risk education management and coordination overview[18]

SEMA coordinates risk education with national NGO consortia in each state and international organizations conducting risk education.[19] There is an independent consortium of national NGOs under each of the five SEMA state member offices: Central Somalia Mine Action Consortium (CESMAC), Jubbaland Mine Action Network (JUMAN), Puntland Risk Solutions Consortium (PRSC), Shabelle and Hiran Mine Action Consortium (SHAHMAC, Hirshabelle), and South West Demining Consortium (SOWDEG).

Challenges to the coordination of risk education included the existence of different operating contexts across national and regional levels. SEMA did not have the capacity to conduct quality assurance of risk education activities due to a lack of technical ability and low levels of funding.[20]

Victim assistance management and coordination

Victim assistance management and coordination overview[21]

In 2019, victim assistance coordination began again some five years after the first and only previous coordination meeting on victim assistance held in Somalia in 2014. In June 2019, SEMA and UNMAS held a two-day survivor assistance workshop. It was attended by national actors and by the Mine Ban Treaty Implementation Support Unit

Laws and policies

Victim assistance workshops, including government actors and representatives of persons with disabilities, were held in Somalia in 2019.[22] Applying the findings of UNMAS-funded victim assistance situational analysis completed in 2018, Somalia initiated an inclusive process for the development of a National Victim Assistance and Disability Action Plan, which was subsequently launched in Oslo in November 2019.[23] Since the late 1990s, the Norwegian Red Cross (NRC), with the ICRC support, helped physical rehabilitation centers run by the Somali Red Crescent Society (SRCS) in Galkayo, Hargeisa, and Mogadishu.[24] Somalia enacted a law in December 2018 establishing a National Disability Agency with the mandate to develop livelihood training centers for persons with disabilities. Somalia fast-tracked ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), on 6 August 2019, due to “intense lobbying by [disabled people’s organizations] DPOs and responsiveness on the part of the government.”[25]

At the 2018 Global Disability Summit in London, Somalia committed to develop and pass a “National Disability Bill” and a national disability policy.[26] In June 2018, the Council of Ministers approved a bill to establish a National Agency for Persons with Disabilities. The bill was presented before the Cabinet by the Ministry of Women and Human Rights.[27] In December 2018, the upper house of Federal Parliament unanimously passed the bill to establish the agency.[28] Early in 2018, the Institute for Education of Disabled People (IEDP), which has also been engaged in victim assistance had previously expressed concerns that the process of establishing the agency was biased.[29]

Impact

Contamination

Contamination overview (as of December 2019)[30]

* Somalia did not identify specific improvised mine-contaminated areas in 2019.

Note: CHA=confirmed hazardous area; ERW=explosive remnants of war; and SHA=suspected hazardous area.

Landmine contamination

As a result of the Ethiopian-Somali wars in 1964 and 1977–1978 (also known as the Ogaden war), and more than 20 years of internal conflict since 1991, Somalia is significantly contaminated with mines and ERW. According to UNMAS, antipersonnel and antivehicle mines were laid as recently as 2012 in the disputed regions of Sool and Sanaag.[31]

Contamination from mines and ERW exists across Somalia’s three major regions: southcentral Somalia, including the capital Mogadishu; Puntland; and Somaliland, a self-proclaimed, though unrecognized, state that operates autonomously in the northwest. Most of the landmine contamination is along the border with Ethiopia, mainly as a result of legacy minefields dating from the border conflicts between both countries.

Somalia reported that at the end of 2019 it had 6.10km² of antipersonnel mine contaminated land, although SEMA was in the process of synchronizing data from implementing partners into the national database.[32] Somalia also reported an increase in the use of improvised mines, referred to as victim operated IEDs (VO-IEDs), the extent of such contamination was not identified.[33]

Insecure and poorly managed stockpiles of weapons and ammunition, as well as the use of IEDs and mines of an improvised nature by non-state armed groups, have a serious humanitarian impact. The extent of the threat is not well known, except in Puntland and Somaliland where a range of surveys have been carried out over the past decade.[34]

In 2018, UNMAS reported that mine and ERW contamination in Somalia continued to restrict community access to basic services and economic opportunities and remained an impediment to stability, security, and ultimately, recovery, and development.[35]

Cluster munition remnant contamination

In 2020, Somalia reported six contaminated areas on its historical database, including reports of munitions in Southwest State, Jubaland State, and Puntland. However, no clearance or survey was reported in 2019.[36] Galdogob, a border town in Mudug Province, was reported to have been cleared by UNMAS in 2016.[37]

While the extent of cluster munition contamination along the Somali border with Ethiopia is unknown, in 2014, Somalia claimed it posed an ongoing threat to the lives of nomadic populations and their animals.[38]

ERW contamination

The extent of ERW contamination was not reported. However, the majority of items reported cleared in 2019 were explosive items other than mines. In addition, according to Monitor data. ERW have caused the majority of annual casualties since 2011, when the device type was known.

Casualties

Casualties overview

Casualties in 2019: details

In 2019, at least 32 ERW casualties were recorded in Somalia in 2019.[39] Children accounted for 88% of casualties in 2019. Since 2015, children represented the majority of annual casualties where the age is known in Somalia, ranging from 78% to 88% of all casualties during the five-year period.

In 2017, the SEMA took over management of the IMSMA database and the reporting of casualties from UNMAS. Some 1,300 casualties were registered in the UNMAS database.[40] Somalia did not report casualties or survivor data for 2018 or 2019 in its Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 reports, and detailed national data recording individual casualties was not available.

The total number of all-time casualties in Somalia is unknown. The Monitor has recorded 3,313 mine/ERW casualties in 1999–2019, including 1,296 people killed, 1,664 injured, and 353 with their survival status unknown. In 2014, the Somalia Coalition to Ban Landmines (SOCBAL) surveyed 850 mine/ERW survivors in Mogadishu alone. In 2001, the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) reported that 1,731 injured mine/ERW casualties were recorded in Bay and Bakool regions and 2,626 people killed between 1995 and 2000.[41]

Cluster munition casualties

The number of cluster munition casualties in Somalia is unknown. In a 2014 statement to the States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Somalia recognized that there are cluster munition victims in Somalia living in severe conditions with mostly unmet needs.[42]

Addressing the impact

Mine action

Operators and service providers

Clearance operators

Clearance

Land release overview[43]

Note: N/R=not reported.

Somalia is behind target in the implementation of its Mine Ban Treaty clearance obligations and intends to submit a request to extend its Article 5 deadline.[44] Somalia has noted challenges to clearance and land release, including: a lack of efficient coordination between SEMA and operators; insufficient funding; lack of an adequate overview of the extent of contamination; and inaccessibility of areas due to insecurity.[45]

Land release: landmines

In 2019 Somalia reported clearing a total 15.4km² of which 0.12km² was mixed antipersonnel mines and antivehicle mines, 8.42km² was antivehicle mine contamination, and another 6.86km² was ERW.[46] Somalia did not provide any information on the item types included under ERW and whether improvised mines were included.

In 2019, Somalia reported it considers VO-IEDs to be improvised antipersonnel mines according to the Mine Ban Treaty as noted in the Oslo Action Plan. Somalia was working to integrate data on improvised mine casualties into the national database, without specific mention of planning survey to calculate the extent of contaminated areas.[47]

Land release: cluster munition remnants

No clearance of cluster munition remnants was reported in 2019.

Risk education

Operators and service providers

Risk education operators[48]

Note: IDPs=internally displaced persons.

Beneficiary numbers

Beneficiaries of risk education in 2019[49]

SEMA reported more than 22,000 beneficiaries of risk education in 2019, including 5,993 men, 9,498 boys, 6,958 women, and 5,981 girls. The data was not disaggregated by implementing organizations.[50]

Implementation

Target groups

Men are the most challenging to reach out during provision of risk education due to their unpredictability. This is mainly linked to the fact that they are breadwinners engaged in labor works and, most of the time, are not available for risk education.[51]

Risk education is provided in schools, but not as part of the formal curriculum.

Nomadic and pastoral communities were also target groups for risk education in Somalia.

Somalia did not report conducting specific risk education for cluster munition contamination.[52]

UNMAS reported that 63 sessions for persons with disabilities were held in 2019, in which 18 boys, 13 girls, 122 men and 22 women were reached.[53]

Delivery methods

In Somalia local communities often mistrust people from international organizations, and messages were better delivered by people from the community. External messages delivered through text messages and social media were unlikely to be considered unless the operator was already known and trusted in that community.[54]

In 2019 Danish Demining Group (DDG) was working in the greater Benadir region delivering mine risk education to IDP settlements and supporting the promotion of women leaders as part of a larger peacebuilding and stabilization program.[55]

In 2019, the HALO Trust provided risk education in areas of clearance operations before, during, and after starting manual clearance activities. Face-to-face risk education was delivered following the oral tradition of impacted communities, with messages delivered person-to-person. Leaflets were distributed, but due to the low levels of literacy, they cannot be used as a standalone activity. It also provided risk education in an emergency response to communities displaced by flash floods in Hirshabelle State in October 2019. [56]

In 2019, NPA hired, trained, and managed staff from the Puntland Risk Solutions consortium to deliver risk education activities.[57]

In 2019, UNMAS provided risk education to partners working to implement humanitarian and stabilization activities in the country. Risk education was also integrated into other humanitarian activities such as through support to IDPs and returnees.[58]

Victim assistance

Victim assistance providers and activities

Victim assistance operators[59]

Note: N/R=not reported.

Major recent developments

Needs assessment

In 2018, UNMAS Somalia and the SEMA commission finalized a report that identified the gaps in assistance to victims and provided information on how the mine action sector could help fill such gaps. The report included interviews with over 100 national and international stakeholders and visits to the Federal Member States. Nevertheless, Somalia stated in its 2018 and 2019 Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 reports that further assessment was needed in order to identify which organizations supporting persons with disabilities also engage in victim assistance activities.[60]

In 2018, an UNMAS victim assistance assessment reported that survivors and persons with disabilities expressed frustration about the frequency of surveys and research projects theyweare subjected to without receiving a corresponding offer of assistance.[61] Similarly, survivors interviewed during a 2013 Somalia Coalition to Ban Landmines (SOCBAL) survey often reported that they had already been surveyed several times, including having their contact details and photographs taken by international and local NGOs, but were frustrated that no assistance had followed.[62] SEMA continued to propose conducting a national survey of landmine survivors to determine the numbers of survivors and their needs and requested, but not received, international support for the survey.[63]

In 2019, Somalia stated it was facing victim assistance funding challenges from national sources and international donors and “could not reach the goals for supporting the Landmine victims, survivors, and general disability assistance unless the international community and donor states realise this goal.”[64]

Medical care and rehabilitation

Basic services in Somalia are severely lacking due to political instability, precarious security conditions, and climate impact. It is difficult for international organizations to deliver aid.[65] First response, trauma, and medical care have some, but limited, availability. Access is difficult, particularly in rural areas. There is a lack of capacity to perform complex surgery, which requires travel to Mogadishu or abroad.[66] Medical care in Somalia is supported by the ICRC, which supports emergency surgical services at two hospitals in Mogadishu and hospitals in Baidoa and Kismayo.

A 2018 report found that approximately 20% of rehabilitation needs in Somalia were covered by existing services, and that there was a shortage of assistive devices.[67]

The SRCS remained the primary provider of rehabilitation services and assistive devices, but the range is limited with no such services available in the southwest of the country.[68] ICRC MoveAbility partnered with the SRCS and NRC to provide and develop physical rehabilitation services. ICRC MoveAbility focused on providing technical expertise and logistical support to the centers, which have a lack of supplies and qualified staff, and limited government assistance. In 2020, the ICRC and the NRC continued to support the Mogadishu rehabilitation center through physiotherapy trainings and, training for prosthetic and orthotic professionals. [69]

Socio-economic and psychosocial inclusion

Overall, persons with disabilities are among the most vulnerable and are at risk of social exclusion in Somalia. Poverty and social exclusion are interlinked, the lack of employment is the major cause of poverty. Efforts have been made in the Somali government to improve the employment participation rate but significant obstacles to gain and retain, employment remained. Access to education and to vocational training, limited availability of housing, assistive technology, and accessible transport are still lacking.[70]

Psychological support remains deficient in Somalia. As of May 2018, no improvements were reported in the provision of socio-economic support or in the social inclusion of survivors in Somalia.[71] The government of Somalia committed to establish vocational training centers for persons with disabilities to provide entrepreneurial skills and workforce development. Those efforts would be aligned with policies and programs to expand access to credit for micro-enterprises and targeted support for small business creation.[72]

Persons with disabilities offer each other informal support. Those who provide psychosocial support have only basic training working at local DPOs. The few professionals who can support more complex cases are inadequate to meet the psychological needs of the many affected by the protracted conflict.[73]

Cross-cutting

Women with disabilities continue to be vulnerable to sexual violence and forced marriage. The government of Somalia proposed to focus on women and girls in their efforts to support persons with disabilities to address the multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination based on gender and disability in Somalia.[74]