Humanitarian demining operations in general

Humanitarian demining operators in Angola

Humanitarian demining operations

Humanitarian demining is responses to the concern about the impact of landmines on people and communities. Humanitarian mine action aims to minimize impact on lives and limbs of people and on the economy and the well being of communities. 

Humanitarian demining has been conducted in Angola since 1995 by government institutions, non governmental organizations responsible for humanitarian assistance and development. In some cases also private demining companies and military units.  

There are different types humanitarian demining operations. These are:

• Land mine Surveying
• Land mine awareness campaigning
• Land mine marking and mine mapping
• Land mine clearing
• Quality assurance

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Surveying for minefields and unexploded ordnance and assessing their impact

National, regional and local landmine surveys identify locations, sizes and magnitudes of known and suspected areas contaminated by landmines and unexploded ordnances. The survey process aims at identifying social and economic impact of landmines and unexploded ordnance on communities. Humanitarian land mine surveying in Angola began in 1995. Before new hostilities broke out in 1998, more than 2500 mine fields and locations of unexploded ordnance was identified. Since then problems of security has restrained efforts to complete a national survey of Angola.  Information from the landmine survey is used for setting priorities and plan future humanitarian mine action and coordination by INAROEE,  UN agencies and Non Governmental Organizations. 

Mine awareness campaigns

Mine awareness campaigns are measures for informing communities about landmines and unexploded ordnance and teaching the communities how to live with such threats to their lives, limbs and possibilities for economic and social development. Various forms of communication are being used, among them group conversations, theater, radio announcements, posters and leaflets. INAROEE reports that an estimate of approximately 1,2 million people has received training on  land mines and unexploded ordnance training since 1995 until November 2001.

People being informed about mine fields

Marking of minefields and unexploded ordnance

A preliminary step in order to prevent further accidents from landmines and unexploded ordnances in a community is to mark a minefield. Marking are done by members of the communities and/or by trained personnel from NGOs or the Government.

	Landmine Hazard signaling

Clearing of mines and unexploded ordnance

Safe removal and destruction of Land mines and unexploded ordnance requires technical training and experience. There are different tools and techniques that can be used and often many techniques are being combined.

Manual demining is people searching for landmines by using tools such as metal detectors and gravels in an area covering 20 x 100 cm at a time. This traditional technique is tedious and slow, but can be adopted everywhere after careful training of proper operators.

Mechanical demining are people using vehicles with various tools for removal and destruction of landmines by driving over the complete minefield. This technique is fast, but it requires favorable terrain and vegetation, as well as access to fuel and spare parts.

Vehicle used for mechanical demining

Dogs can be trained to detect the scent of explosives inside landmines and unexploded ordnances. Dogs can be used for searching areas or the dogs can be provided with air samples from air filters sampled by people walking behind mine protected vehicles on a road.

Trained dogs can be used to detect explosives

INAROEE reports that 15 million square meters of land and 6000 kilometers of roads has been reported cleared between 1995 and 2002. Approximately 16.000 landmines and 50.000 unexploded ordnances has been reported removed and destructed in the same period.

Quality assurance

This is control of the quality of work carried out by independent agencies by studying completion reports, interviewing operators as well as testing the quality of humanitarian demining processes.

Organizations participating in Humanitarian demining in Angola

26 governmental agencies, national and international non governmental organizations and United Nations Agencies are or have been engaged in humanitarian demining operations in Angola.

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Areas of ongoing mine clearance operation (as of December 2001)

Humanitarian Mine Action NGOs are currently operating in 26 locations in 9 provinces in Angola. The provinces are selected for operations based upon humanitarian and long term need assessments, relative stable security situation and feasability for obtaining fuel and spare parts. All map references are with reference to the Official Topographic Map Series for The Republic of Angola in the scale of 1:100.000.

Here is the table

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