Team:Edinburgh/mapxmlkongo



Dem. Rep. of the Congo <![CDATA[The Republic of Congo (Congo-Brazzaville) acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty on 4 May 2001, becoming a State Party on 1 November 2001.

No mine use has been reported in Congo since 1997, when mines were used during its civil war. Congo is not known to have produced or exported antipersonnel mines. In September 2003, Congo reported the destruction of its stockpile of 5,136 antipersonnel mines.

The Republic of Congo is significantly contaminated with explosive remnants of war (ERW), both abandoned explosive ordnance and unexploded ordnance (UXO). The problem results from civil conflict in 1993–1999. There are many areas of ERW contamination and MAG has said that even the capital, Brazzaville, has an area of 260,000m2 still contaminated with UXO. The threat includes cluster munitions. Unsafe storage conditions of explosive ordnance also increase the likelihood of fires or explosions at ASAs; these have already occurred several times.

The exact extent to which Congo is affected by antipersonnel mines is unknown. According to its Article 7 report for April 2003 to April 2004, “the border zone with Angola in the southwest of the country is mine suspected.” Its latest Article 7 report, covering calendar year 2006, indicated “no change” in the situation on the cover page.[15] As previously reported by Landmine Monitor, the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) believes that the mine problem—to the extent one exists—is limited to an area 60km in diameter between the unclearly marked borders of the Cabinda enclave (Angola), the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and the Republic of Congo.

In May 2006, Colonel Leonce Nkabi, the mine action focal point within the Ministry of National Defense, declared that the “Republic of Congo remains concerned with the preparations for de-mining in the southwest of the country along the border with the Republic of Angola, where mines have probably been laid.” It was further claimed that civilians in the suspected areas were reluctant to return to their communities to carry out forestry and farming as “they have not received any guarantees for their security from the authorities.”

In November 2007, at the Eighth Meeting of States Parties, Congo reaffirmed that the mine-suspected region was in the southwest of the country bordering Angola and the DRC. It announced the signature of an agreement with MAG for survey of the suspected area as well as UXO clearance elsewhere in the country. It also claimed that any clearance would only be successful if the concerned neighboring countries were involved. In February 2008, MAG carried out a survey in the Kimongo region suspected to be contaminated, along the border with Cabinda. The findings of the survey “did not confirm a current mine threat on the Republic of Congo side of the border,” but MAG hoped to carry out additional spot verification in the region in April/May 2008 to further validate the results. In June 2008, MAG reported that this had not occurred because of the rainy season and difficulties in acquiring suitable transport. It was hoped that new funding for the program would enable the work to take place subsequently.

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