Impact from January 2016 – to date

Since 1st January 2016, UNMAS supported MONUSCO Protection of Civilian (POC) mandate by responding to 626 explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) requests from the UNMAS green line, civilians, FARDC and MONUSCO. The number of beneficiaries from this activity is estimated at 707,500 civilians who now have safe access to key civilian infrastructures and land in four provinces (North Kivu, Ituri, South Kivu and Tanganyika), from which a total of 3,500 explosive items have been removed. Furthermore, in support of MONUSCO TCCs and FARDC, UNMAS has destroyed unserviceable small arms and light weapon ammunition (157,805 from TCCs and 44,118 from FARDC).

In support of the DDR process, UNMAS has destroyed 53 Explosive Remnants of War (ERW), 479 rounds of ammunition and 44 weapons collected during the demobilization of arms groups. Finally, UN military and civilian personnel operating in the DRC (2,386 men and 1,092 women) participated in 116 ERW/IED risk awareness training sessions (including TCCs capsule training and SSAFE trainings) on the risks posed by explosive ordnance and learned about safe behaviours.

Since 2016, has supported the Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) management through the marking of over 18,500 state-held weapons in Ituri, Tanganyika and Kinshasa Provinces. UNMAS also provided five weapon marking machines and related equipment to the CNC-ALPC. UNMAS installed weapons safes and weapon and ammunition storage solutions in 271 sites across eight provinces: Nord-Kivu, Sud-Kivu, Kinshasa, Ituri, Kasai Central, Tanganyika, Haut-Katanga and Tshopo. To note, 63 were for the benefit of FARDC, 203 for the PNC, four for the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN) and one for MONUSCO DDR, resulting in 19,521 state-held weapons secured through the installation of gun safes, refurbishment of existing armories and containers converted into mobile armories and Police stations at PNC and FARDC premises. UNMAS also constructed seven out of 26 armories, and rehabilitated three armories. UNMAS also converted 15 equipped containers into police substations and plans to convert an additional 12 containers for the PNC in 2021.

UNMAS provided institutional capacity enhancement activities through training on weapons marking to 20 CNC-ALPC, FARDC and PNC personnel. CNC-ALPC is now able to deploy simultaneously two joint CNC-PNC-FARDC marking teams with UNMAS support. Finally, UNMAS provided training on Weapons and Ammunition Management to over 1,600 FARDC and PNC personnel  in North-Kivu, Kinshasa, South-Kivu, Kasai Central and Ituri (5% were women).