ReliefWeb

The Republic of the Sudan signed the "Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction" also known as the Mine Ban Convention on 4 December 1997, and following its ratification on 23 October 2003, the Convention entered into force for the Sudan on 1 April 2004.

Under Article 4 of the Mine Ban Treaty, the Republic of the Sudan has to destroy stockpiled anti personnel mines by 30 April 2008. The official destruction ceremony of the first batch of 4,488 various types of antipersonnel mines took place at 11 hours, 30 April 2007 in Al-sailt area, Khartoum-North. Following is the breakdown of the stockpiled antipersonnel mines destroyed

The destruction ceremony was about 150 participants including:

- Minister of National Defence and Co-chair of the National Mine Action Authority-NMAA

- Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Co-chair of the National Mine Action Authority-NMAA

- State Minister of Humanitarian Affairs (Government of National Unity-GONU), who is also Secretary General of the NMAA

- Commissioner, Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC)

- Representatives from the Embassy of Japan and the UK,

- Representatives from ICRC

- A number of Senior Military/Civilian Officials from various ministries

- Director, National Mine Action Center (NMAC) Khartoum

- Commissioner, Southern Sudan Demining Commission (SSDC)-Juba

- Director/Programme Manager, UN Mine Action Office-Khartoum and a number of other staff of UNMAO

- Senior Mine Action Technical Advisor-UNDP, Khartoum

- Representative from national and international civil society organizations

- Representative of local electronic and print media

Speaking on this occasion, the Minster of National Defence, State Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, and the Director of National Mine Action Center (NMAC) re-iterated the commitment of the Sudan to meeting its obligations under the Mine Ban Convention and confirmed that Sudan will destroy the remaining stockpiled anti-personnel mines well before the deadline of 30 April 2008. They also thanked the donor community and the UN for their participation in this important event and for their continued support to the mine action process in the Sudan.

Speaking on this occasion, the Director of UN Mine Action Office (UNMAO) congratulated the National Authorities in the Sudan for taking this bold and important step and hoped that the Sudan will take further steps to meet all the obligations of the Mine Ban Convention.

Within the unified structure of the UN Mine Action Office, UNDP Sudan has been working with concerned national authorities by providing technical assistance and support to enable them to coordinate, plan, implement, supervise, and quality assure mine action operations and to meet their obligations under the Mine Ban Convention.

The ceremony came to an end with two simultaneous huge and spectacular explosions of the 4,488 stockpiled antipersonnel mines. Below please see some pictures from the event.

For any further details please contact:

Qadeem Tariq
Senior Technical Advisor-
Mine Action Capacity Development-UNDP Khartoum, Sudan
Mobile: +249 912165 234 Fax: +249 155 188 851
E-mail: qadeem.tariq@undp.org
Website: www.sd.undp.org