JEDDAH, 16 May 2003 — The European Commission has allocated $1.73 million to finance a major project to support the second phase of a nationwide land mine impact survey for Somalia, an EC statement said on Wednesday. An EC official was quoted as saying that the second phase will be carried out in the northeastern autonomous region of Puntland and Baidoa in southern Somalia. The first phase of the project was carried out in the northwestern region of the breakaway Somaliland from May 2002 to March 2003.
Land mines have been extensively used in Somalia, during conflicts with Ethiopia in the 1970s and 1980s and during the civil war in the 1990s, when all sides of the conflict laid mines. Almost all regions of Somalia have been affected by mines or unexploded ordnance (UXO).
The statement added: “The project will include technical assistance for the Somali authorities to develop a mine-action strategy for clearance and implementation of the Ottawa Convention on anti-personnel mines. The survey will provide Somalia and international donors with quantifiable, standardized data regarding the impact of land mines and UXO upon communities there.”
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The first group of 2,880 Somali refugees who were accommodated at camps in northern Kenya have begun to return to their country. The refugees fled from Somalia in wake of the civil war in 1991. The UN High Commission for Refugees said the return operation kicked off on Tuesday, with the airlift of 50 refugees to Galkayo in the central region.
The UNHCR said it also expected to assist the return of a further 300 refugees to Bosaso in the northeastern region over the next five days. The 2,880 returning refugees are part of 6,000 Somali refugees who signed up in 2001 to voluntarily return home. But their return was delayed by a combination of funding difficulties and security problems in Somalia. Those returning have received an assistance package consisting of basic supplies such as plastic sheeting, blankets and utensils.
Each family also will receive a transport allowance for their onward trip to their places of origin and a nine months’ food rations from the World Food Program. They will also be given assistance in integrating into their communities through various development programs, the UNHCR said.
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Kenyan envoy to Somalia Bethuel Kiplagat expects that the Somali participants at the present peace talks in Nairobi will form a broad based government for their country by next month, press reports said. “Toward the 15th or 20th of June, we shall have formed a broad based federal government for Somalia,” Kiplagat was quoted as saying. The seven-month peace talks have brought in more than twenty political factions and Transitional National Government.
