SUMMARY (Reporting Period: 01 October 2007 - 31 October 2007)

Activities & Outputs Summary: - Search and clearance of a total of 23,783 sq/m of land through a combination of hand, electronic, and visual techniques - Removal and destruction of a total of 2,840 hazardous items: including 366 UXO (unexploded ordnance), 2,474 items of small arms ammunition - Destruction of 6,361 weapons, 645 items of ammunition, 75,700 cartridges and 65 AP (anti-personnel) mines in the Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) category - 297 Dangerous Areas identified - 126 Mine Risk Education (MRE) sessions conducted targeting 97,887 beneficiaries

Impact Summary:

Disposal operations began this month at Camp Ngashi in Equateur of over 23,000 hazardous items which were collected in previous months from Battle Area Clearance (BAC). Over 2,000 hazardous items plus an additional 1,213 weapons were destroyed in 5 separate demolitions. BAC operations will continue alongside disposal operations into the New Year with support from the Humanitarian Action Plan Pooled Fund, identified as the primary humanitarian priority for Equateur Province. In Katanga, MAG's HMA team continued deployment in the Moba-Pweto-Moliro triangular region of operations in preparation for when repatriation programmes, halted in August due to ethnic tensions, commence again in November. A total of 1,276 people received MRE in this area during October including targeted activities in Kirungu and Moba Port. The Katanga based SALW team destroyed ammunition stockpiles in Mutabi, near Lubumbashi, including 65 AP mines handed over by the Congolese Joint Armed Forces.

ACTIVITIES

Equateur

Activities in Equateur this month focused on the start of demolition operations with items collected from BAC at Camp Ngashi by both the HMA and SALW teams. Despite the challenges posed by the start of the rainy season MAG was able to transport over 2,000 hazardous items to a controlled demolition site near Bogonde village with the use of quad bikes. Prior to the start of demolition operations MAG also conducted a refresher EOD level 1 training for all technicians. The items destroyed this month were cut up at Camp Ngashi using industrial saws; 3,670 weapons have been destroyed to date at the Camp. While clearance operations focused on Camp Ngashi, MAG's Community Liaison Team and Technical Operations Manager hosted two external evaluators in Basankusu for MAG's Sida supported HMA project. Initial feedback from the evaluation was very positive and MAG is looking forward to the final evaluation report so as to best tailor future operations to meet beneficiary needs.

Katanga

MAG's Katanga HMA teams worked in more than 80 villages between Pepa and Pweto and around Mutoto Moya. The Community Liaison team was also active in Kirungu and Moba Port. Clearance Teams completed 339 Dangerous Areas covering 16,650m 2 of land, removing 322 items of unexploded ordnance and 1,403 other miscellaneous items. Community Liaison Teams conducted a follow-up deployment to the Mutoto Moya region where a further 133 Dangerous Areas were reported and 130 awareness raising leaflets were given to informants. Focused work in Kirungu and Moba Port to raise awareness of the dangers of unexploded ordnance and to promote safe behaviours commenced during October and will continue into November. This follows reports in Kirungu of children being harmed while playing with grenades and local police and army forces throwing UXO into a river. The awareness raising programme started work with two primary schools in Kirungu, nurses at Kirungu hospital, the police forces of Kirungu and Moba Port, and has addressed the general population using local radio stations. Radio work was in conjunction with 'Radio Communautaire de Moba' and the NGO 'Search for Common Ground' in Kirungu and 'Majengo' radio in Moba Port. Both radio pieces profiled Papa Wemba as Ambassador against UXOs (a MAG project funded by UNICEF). ressed the general population using local radio stations. Radio work was in conjunction with 'Radio Communautaire de Moba' and the NGO 'Search for Common Ground' in Kirungu and 'Majengo' radio in Moba Port. Both radio pieces profiled Papa Wemba as Ambassador against UXOs (a MAG project funded by UNICEF).

Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) Destruction Project

In October, operations focused on weapons destruction in Kinshasa at the Central Logistics Base, weapons destruction in the 3 rd Military Region at Camp Ngashi, and ammunitions destruction in the 6th Military Region at Dubie and Lubumbashi. MAG continued to organize and attend coordination meetings with stakeholders including the Congolese Armed Forces, UNDP and the Regional Center on Small Arms and Light Weapons (RECSA) for the Great Lakes and Horn of Africa, to ensure destruction operations continue uninterrupted in the coming months and to share lessons learned with potential destruction projects in other countries in the region. In total the programme destroyed over 6,000 weapons this month with destruction operations in Kinshasa remaining focused on heavy weapons which require more time to destroy.

For more information on this or any of MAG's programmes across the world, please visit www.magclearsmines.org, or contact: Katharine Hopper (Regional Desk Officer) e-mail: Katharine.Hopper@mag.org.uk 1 1MAG, 47 Newton Street, Manchester, M FT, UK Tel: +44 161 236 4311 Fax: +44 161 236 6244