The 1st September 2007 marked the start of operational activities for MAG Iraq's newly formed mobile small arms and light weapons (SALW) destruction project. With funding granted from the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement, U.S. Department of State, MAG Iraq has established this dedicated, specialised technical and community liaison capacity as part of its conflict recovery and peace building programme.
Six SALW emergency response teams and 3 community liaison teams were recruited from local communities and trained throughout August. MAG community liaison teams will be working with communities affected by SALW contamination and with other conflict recovery organisations in the region to identify the prioritised instances of SALW contamination. The expert mobile teams will then travel to the sites to safely remove and destroy the items.
As part of its SALW outreach campaign, MAG has established a local hotline number for communities to report incidents of SALW contamination. Through advertising and community liaison, MAG is promoting the 'DIAL 234' campaign. Dialing this number will put SALW-affected individuals and communities in direct contact with the MAG Iraq SALW teams.
The project will remove a direct threat to communities that are forced to live in close proximity to dangerous and unstable explosive ordnance. By removing unguarded and unsecured stockpiles and caches of explosives, the project will also help to build security and peace in Iraq and the wider region.
The need for such a dedicated highly skilled capacity is demonstrated by the team's performance so far. They have responded to 53 tasks in just two weeks, safely removing and destroying more than 3,000 items of SALW. These items contained over one ton of high explosive, which has now been safely, and permanently destroyed.
About MAG in Iraq
MAG has been operating in Iraq since 1992, and during the most recent conflict our efforts have concentrated on delivering vital services in the north of the country. Our work significantly reduces the threat to both resident and transient populations, and has supported rehabilitation and socio-economic development initiatives. To date MAG has cleared more that one and a half million landmines and items of Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) and freed up several million sq/m of land in Iraq. Currently, we have over 670 national staff working in the programme. Even though MAG operates under security constraints, we remain operational in accessible areas in order to deliver much-needed clearance and development services.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
