Background Information – UNMAS
The United Nations Mine Action Service (UNM...
Background Information – UNMAS
The United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS)
is the coordinator for Mine Action within the United Nations system, located
within the Office of Rule of Law and Security Institutions (OROLSI) at the
Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO). It chairs the Inter-Agency
Coordination Group on Mine Action (IACG-MA) and is the lead of the Global
Protection Cluster (GPC) Mine Action Area of Responsibility (MA AoR). Mine
action comprises five areas of work: clearance, risk education, victim
assistance, advocacy and stockpile destruction. The United Nations applies mine
action expertise to an increasingly wide range of explosive hazards, from
unexploded missiles, artillery shells, rockets, grenades and mortars, to unsafe
and unsecured weapons and ammunition, improvised explosive devices and cluster
bombs. UNMAS leads, coordinates and carries out efforts to mitigate these
threats when mandated by the United Nations Security Council or, when requested
by the Secretary-General or an affected country, often in response to a
humanitarian emergency.
Background Information – UNMAS Iraq
UNMAS deployed an initial assessment team to
Iraq in March 2015 and has since expanded to offices in both Baghdad and Erbil
and supporting multiple layers of operations.
The UNMAS Iraq programme (“UNMAS Iraq”) was
formally established in June 2015, at the request of the UN Under-Secretary
General for Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) and the Special Representative of
the Secretary General for Iraq, to lead the UN efforts to mitigate explosive
threats in the country, as well as to support the enhancement of national and
regional mine action capacities.
The presence of explosive hazards and
explosive contamination in areas ‘retaken’ from the Islamic State in Iraq and
the Levant (ISIL) occupation in Iraq continued to impede security and stability
efforts across Iraq. UNMAS has implemented a comprehensive response to address
the problem of explosive remnants of war (ERW) and improvised explosive devices
(IEDs) in areas newly retaken from ISIL occupation. Iraq is heavily
contaminated with large volumes of recorded and unquantified ERW through
protracted ground fighting and aerial bombing. Recent years have seen
unprecedented accumulations of IEDs placed in urban and rural areas largely by
‘scorched earth’ tactics by ISIL. This is exemplified by the situation in areas
recently retaken from ISIL occupation, and where areas have become
uninhabitable and inaccessible because of such threats. As a result, this poses
such a significant blockage for humanitarian response efforts, with the UN and
national leadership repeatedly referring to a ‘mine action’ as being a high
priority.