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Angola

Angola deepens study on landmine problem

Mbanza Congo - Angola has taken the commitment to conduct an in-depth study on the dimension of the landmine issue in the country and come up in five years with a number of programmatic, financial and time proposals for its elimination.

This was said by the chairman of the National Inter-sector Commission for Demining and Humanitarian Aid (CNIDAH), Santana André Pitra “Petroff”.

The official was addressing the ninth plenary session on action against landmines in northern Zaire province taking place until Thursday in Mbanza Congo.

To this end, according to him, several activities are currently in progress, with stress to research and updating of the CNIDAH database which will enable to assess the extension of the problem and the progress made over the years and plan a response to the challenges.

As he said, Angola as a signatory to the Ottawa Convention had until 2012 to eradicate the landmine problem in the national territory.

He mentioned the long armed conflict, the diversity of the players, the large extension of the national territory and the adverse climate as factors that hindered the country from meeting the landmine eradication terms.

However, he informed that over three billion square metres of the national territory were cleared of landmines since 2002, including more than 50,000 kilometres of road.

The ninth plenary session on action against landmine is intended to clarify and strengthen the action strategy under the 2013/2017 strategic plan, seeking to better respond to the new challenges. Similar meetings have so far been held in the provinces of Bié, Cuando Cubango, Cuanza Norte, Cuanza Sul, Huambo, Malange and Moxico.