Mozambique Projects 

HUMANITARIAN LAND MINE AND UNEXPLODED ORDNANCE CLEARANCE

NAMPULA PROVINCE, THE REPUBLIC OF MOZAMBIQUE

INTRODUCTION

1. The Canadian Association for Mine and Explosive Ordnance (CAMEO) Security was organized in February 1997 as a charitable not-for-profit Society to provide professional, safe, efficient, and cost-effective humanitarian land mine clearance and explosive ordnance disposal services in war-torn societies to save lives and to assist land mine victims.

1.1 Headquartered in Cornwall, Ontario, Canada, CAMEO utilizes the services of former Canadian Military Engineers personnel who have been extensively experienced in land mine clearance and associated activities during their peacekeeping services whilst in uniform. To provide a quick reaction service, CAMEO also maintains working links with the Gurkha Security Guards (EOD) Trust based in the United Kingdom, which maintains a roster of former British Army Gurkha military engineers who are employed on humanitarian land mine and explosive ordnance clearance duties world-wide.

1.1.1 CAMEO personnel have conducted land mine clearance operations in Mozambique, Angola, Cambodia, Kuwait, and the former Yugoslavia, and have educated Afghani people in mine awareness whilst refugees in Pakistan. They are also fully experienced in mine survey and marking as well as mine database management, and are expert in training many different nationalities in all aspects of land mine action and explosive ordnance disposal.

2. CAMEO Security's specific capabilities include:

• Land mine and UXO awareness education and training;
• Mined area reconnaissance, survey, and mapping;
• Land mine and unexploded ordnance (UXO) clearance;
• Training programs in all aspects of land mine action;
• National capacity-building initiatives in mine action;
• Quality control/quality assurance of clearance operations
• Land mine and UXO accident investigations; and
• Advocacy for world-wide banning of anti-personnel mines.

2.1 Because military engineers are also trained in the construction and maintenance of buildings and municipal services such as water and power, CAMEO's complement of former military engineers has the additional capacity to advise communities in war-torn societies on reconstruction and rehabilitation of services once the land mine/UXO hazard has been eliminated.

BACKGROUND TO THE MINE PROBLEM IN MOZAMBIQUE

3. The mine problem in Mozambique has evolved over twenty-five years of almost continuous warfare, both declared and undeclared, and has resulted in a generation of Mozambicans who have never experienced a peaceful existence nor a sense of continuing orderly national growth and development. All participants in these internal wars in Mozambique have used land mines extensively throughout this period, resulting in very few areas of the country which do not have at least some mines in them.

3.1 The Portuguese colonial army laid mines to protect vital positions and installations, hinder the guerillas' freedom of movement, deny selected areas to their enemy completely, and prevent guerillas from re-occupying "cleared" zones. A significant proportion of these mines were never lifted once the conflict ended abruptly in 1975, and the locations of them are no longer known.

3.2 The Frente de Liberação de Moçambique, or FRELIMO, used land mines (primarily anti-personnel), improvised explosive devices (IED), and booby traps against the Portuguese during the war of liberation. Later, after they formed the República Popular de Moçambique as a single-party state, they used similar tactics against the Resisténcia Nacional de Mozambique, or RENAMO, rebels who sought to overthrow the government by denying the rural areas to FRELIMO. Due to the nature of guerilla forces, neither FRELIMO nor RENAMO was able to record accurately the locations of their mines, and few were recovered as a result.

3.3 Prior to its becoming Zimbabwe in 1981, Rhodesia also conducted incursions into Mozambique against their own Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) rebels who sought sanctuary there, and the South African Defence Force continued operations against FRELIMO and increased their support for RENAMO. With greater financial and logistic support, RENAMO were able to take delivery of large numbers of relatively modern anti-tank mines as well as anti-personnel mines, which they laid throughout the country. Furthermore, RENAMO laid anti-personnel mines at random in local gathering places, such as stream ponds where women would come to draw water or do their washing, to disrupt public order among villagers to convince them that the FRELIMO-backed Government of Mozambique could not protect them. The locations of these mines were also not recorded, and many of the personnel involved in laying these mines are now dead, resulting in few memories to tap for local village officials who wish to identify mined areas around their settlements.

3.4 During their internal war against RENAMO, the National Army of Mozambique laid protective minefields around installations of strategic and economic importance, and defensive minefields around towns and villages to shield them from attack. Water sources were mined to deny these to the RENAMO guerillas, as were many bush tracks and approaches to air strips. The majority of these minefields have not been cleared, and most are not fenced off or marked in any way. Neither have they been formally recorded. As a consequence, women and children who have to leave the settlement to obtain food and firewood from the countryside or to obtain water from outside water sources run the daily risk of being maimed or killed by having to walk through these unmarked perimeter minefields.

3.5 In January 1996, the United Nations' Accelerated Demining Programme had recorded 1652 known mined areas in the ten provinces, of which 124 were in the Province of Nampula. Most of the mined areas reported in Nampula province were in local high-use areas such as schools, health posts, community water points, and other community facilities such as playgrounds and public buildings. Since there was only one land mine survey done in Nampula province and that in 1993, and since there has been no land mine specialist presence in Nampula since then, these figures are suspected to be lower than actual, particularly in the rural communities. A detailed land mine reconnaissance and mapping in Nampula Province is essential to identify the exact scope of the problem. There are reputed to be about one million mines in the ground in Mozambique, of which Nampula's portion would probably number 100,000.

3.6 It is not the number of land mines which is the key to the mine problem in the province, however, but rather the number of areas which are mined, or believed to be mined. Deep fear of these inanimate killers prevents farmers from reaching and working their fields and local inhabitants from using community facilities, whether it is a school, a clinic, or a well. Until qualified and respected land mine specialists have surveyed these areas and declared them to be free of mines as far as can be humanly determined (either none was there or those that were have been removed), most local people remain mentally stymied by the possibility of mines in these areas and reconstruction and redevelopment remains stalled. Local villagers are also prey to rumours of mines, with one example being a road in rural Angola which was not used for twenty years until the United Nations drove over it and found no mines present. The road had by this time become totally overgrown and had to be completely rebuilt.

THE CURRENT SITUATION IN MOZAMBIQUE

4. Digitized land mine databases do not exist for the Province of Nampula, neither for the country as a whole. Consequently, there is no effective and efficient way for the Governor of the province to develop a cost-effective land mine clearance strategy, including the setting of priorities for use of very scarce materials. The mine survey being proposed in this project will form the basis for that database, and will conform to the requirements of the National Demining Commission in Maputo so that the data can be transferred to the national mined area database once it has been established.

4.1 Despite its formation in May 1995 to coordinate all mine action in Mozambique, the National Demining Commission (NDC) has no capacity to coordinate the northern provinces of Nampula and Cabo Delgado because there are no expatriate NGOs working in these provinces and no Mozambicans aside from some former soldiers who have a knowledge of land mines. Even those soldiers are unable to conduct marking and mapping of mined areas, so areas are only reported when there has been an accident. Clearly, this situation is unacceptable from a humanitarian viewpoint.

4.2 The United Nations' Accelerated Demining Programme (ADP) covers only the three southern provinces of Maputo, Gaza, and Inhambane. Norwegian People's Aid (NPA), an NGO formed by the Norwegian labour movement during World War II for mutual security from the German occupying forces, has added a demining wing to its broader international humanitarian relief capacity, and this NGO operates in the central three provinces of Tete, Manica, and Sofala with considerable success. The HALO Trust, a British mine-specialist NGO, undertakes mine clearance in Zambezia and Niassa provinces. All three of these expatriate organizations train Mozambicans in mine clearance, as will CAMEO Security in the Province of Nampula. In addition, Handicap International (HI), a French NGO, instructs Mozambicans in mine awareness in the southern and central provinces, but has not yet begun in the northern provinces. CAMEO proposes to conform their mine awareness teaching to the tenets of HI, whose concept of déminage de proximité (community mine action) has become the norm for Mozambique.

5. Canadian humanitarian assistance to Mozambique is concentrated in the province of Nampula under the guidance of Cooperation Canada-Mozambique (COCAMO), which coordinates and assists a number of local NGOs in projects such as employment for unemployed youth and rural women, rehabilitation of former soldiers, and social justice. COCAMO has indicated its desire to see a Canadian land mine action presence in Nampula to work integrally with the NGOs it assists to ensure their security in mined areas of the province. Currently, no such security exists, and CAMEO Security's project will also fill that void. CAMEO will conduct mine awareness education and survey the mine hazard to contain it, systematically eliminating it as time and resources permit. COCAMO's sponsored NGOs could also provide the initial recruitment base for CAMEO's land mine clearance technicians, subject to the availability of volunteers.

6. The need for action is immediate, because casualties continue to occur daily throughout the country. Accurate statistics are not available, but according to Mozambican Government-collected data, in 1996, 680 people were killed and 1,476 seriously injured in land mine-related incidents. It is suspected that these figures represent only a fraction of the reality, however, because the dispersion of the population, the lack of formal reporting procedures, and poor communications result in a restricted flow of information to reliable central sources. A certain proportion of the casualties simply die of their injuries and are buried unreported by their families in the isolated areas.

6.1 As an example, during a mine clearance operation in Manica Province, the contractor was aware of seven deaths and three mutilations that would not have been reported were it not for their intervention. Another example was an incident in June 1995 in Sofala Province, where a surveyor visiting a village discovered that three days earlier a group of children had been chasing a game bird when they detonated a land mine. One child was killed outright, one suffered a massive traumatic amputation of a leg, and the other two had serious shrapnel wounds. No vehicles were available to evacuate the children rapidly to the nearest medical facility which was over 70km away. The children were taken out by ox-cart, and it is unlikely that they all survived the trip - there are no records, because the incident was not formally reported.

6.2 Medical facilities which can successfully treat massive trauma injuries caused by land mines and unexploded ordnance are only found in Maputo and Beira, requiring either air evacuation or long and difficult travel over dirt tracks and rough roads. Local medical clinics are sparse, and in any case do not have the facilities, drugs or expertise to stabilize massive trauma injuries sufficiently to transport casualties to an appropriate surgical facility. This fact is the cause of a high mortality rate and great physical suffering in victims, particularly the children. In Nampula Province, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Holland has been working to alleviate this suffering, but much more remains to be done to establish local emergency treatment centres.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

7. The basic project CAMEO Security proposes to carry out in the Province of Nampula consists of four primary elements:

• Land mine reconnaissance, surveying and marking contaminated areas, and creating a mined area database. This will also include identifying areas which are not mined despite rumours to the contrary, and to which refugees can therefore move forthwith and begin cultivation;
• Clearing priority areas of land mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) to permit early re-use of community facilities such as health posts, schools, and water sources, as well as roads and agricultural areas;
• Training, equipping, and supervising Mozambican demining teams from locally unemployed youth and former soldiers who are being reintegrated into civilian life; and
• Educating communities in land mine/UXO awareness and avoidance, and empowering community leaders and educators to assume these functions on a continuing basis.

8. The project will be organized to be able to accommodate follow-on humanitarian mine action such as establishing working relations with Canadian and Dutch humanitarian NGOs in Nampula province to assist them in working securely in their operating areas, and enhancing the mine database to reflect Geographic Information Systems (GIS) digital mapping capacity which will enable the Province of Nampula to set the most effective clearance objectives. It is also planned to include the training of mine search dogs and Mozambican dog handlers for further reconnaissance, should funding for this activity be made available.

9. CAMEO would seek local government authority to recruit Mozambicans to be trained in all aspects of the Project's scope - land mine clearance, logistics, finance, and management. Depending upon the state of training and the capacity of these volunteers, the project would be able to be turned over to the Mozambicans in part after one year of detailed experience, and fully by the end of three years. It is foreseen that emphasis would be placed upon the empowerment of rural women as well as the use of unemployed youth and former soldiers for the hazardous duties.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN AND DELIVERY SYSTEM

10. To carry out this project, CAMEO proposes to deploy into Mozambique one management and logistics/medical support team, one specialist clearing team, and one training/quality control and assurance team.

10.1 The Management and Support Team would be composed of former Canadian Military Engineers and logistics/medical specialists, and would form the Project Support Base in or near the city of Nampula. In addition to controlling the overall operations, it would interface with the provincial authorities and handle all imported supplies as well as local procurement of labour and material. It would also conduct all personnel pay and accounting functions. Depending upon local banking capabilities, it may be necessary to have a team member commute to Harare, Zimbabwe, which is the closest international banking centre to Nampula.

10.2 The Clearance Team would be led by a former Canadian Military Engineer and would consist of land mine and explosives specialists made up of former Gurkha military engineers and local volunteers from the former RENAMO and FRELIMO military forces. The clearance team would immediately deploy into the areas causing the worst casualties and begin operations as soon as logistics and medical support are in place. They would initially conduct reconnaissances, mark contaminated areas, and clear mines and UXO in accordance with agreed priorities using on-site training and supervision of local teams.

10.3 The Training and Quality Control Team would consist of two Canadian land mine/explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) specialists and Mozambican understudies who had already qualified as clearance technicians, along with a paramedic instructor from southern Africa (probably Malawi, Zimbabwe, or South Africa, if no qualified Mozambican national were to be available).

11. Project personnel for these three teams are as follows:

• Management and Support Team
  • 1 x Canadian Project Director
  • 1 x Canadian Operations Manager
  • 1 x Canadian Logistics Specialist
  • 1 x Local Logistics understudy (and stores person)
  • 1 x Canadian Medical Officer (RN with MPH degree)
  • 1 x Local Paramedic understudy
  • 1 x Canadian mechanic/electrician
  • 1 x Local mechanic/electrician understudy
  • 1 x Local Office Manager/Clerk
  • 1 x Local Accounts Officer/Translator
  • 2 x Local Drivers/interpreters
• Clearance Team
  • 1 x Canadian Team Leader (Land mine/UXO specialist)
  • 6 x Gurkha supervisors (Land mine/UXO specialist)
  • 1 x Malawian paramedic (until local person trained)
  • 1 x Local Land Mine Awareness instructor
  • 1 x Local Cook/Camp supervisor
  • 2 x Local Drivers/Interpreters/Storespersons
  • 30x Local Deminers (hired as training time permits)

The Clearance Team will be totally self-contained, able to live in tented camps in remote areas for extended periods of time. They will be highly mobile so they can move rapidly from one area to another as each gets cleared, at the same time responding to sudden calls for help from those encountering mines in other areas. Once the Mozambican deminers have had sufficient hands-on experience, certain among them will be selected for team leadership training. The paramedic will hold daily clinics at each main camp location as required, to treat injuries and illnesses and to promote public health in the local civilian population.

The Clearance Team may also be separated into three Sections of ten local deminers each, of whom one will be appointed Section Leader, depending upon the size and nature of the area to be cleared. Training of local personnel will be in Serials of ten persons each, and these Serials once graduated will operate as cohesive Sections of the Clearance Team. Each Section would also have one Gurkha supervisor and one paramedic if it is to operate separate from the main body.

Until the training Serials have graduated, the Gurkha supervisors will operate as a Basic Clearance Team for emergency clearance requirements while the Mozambicans are being trained.

• Training and Quality Control Team
  • 2 x Canadian Land Mine/UXO specialists
  • 2 x Local understudies (after six months demining)
  • 1 x South African paramedic instructor
  • 1 x Local Driver/Interpreter

11.1 CAMEO will fully equip each team with all the vehicles, camp stores, protective clothing and specialist equipment needed for the conduct of clearance operations. CAMEO will also administer, feed, clothe, supply, and pay all project personnel for the duration of the programme.

11.2 CAMEO will also organize, equip, train, and maintain one mine search dog handling team once sufficient funds have become available and once the basic clearance operations are under way. This team will consist of two Canadian dog training specialists, six dogs, and six Mozambican handler-trainees. As the dogs and their handlers become trained, they will be sent to suspected mined areas to conduct land mine searches, and replacement dogs and associated handlers will be recruited and trained.

11.3 CAMEO will also be prepared to act as the test-bed for Canadian industry-leading technology which requires field trials prior to production. Examples of such technologies are remote mine-sensing devices and mechanical explosive vapour detectors. The industry requiring the field-testing will be required to arrive on site self-contained for all purposes.

12. CAMEO operating procedures will follow those recommended by the Mine Clearance Policy Unit (MCPU) of the United Nations' Department of Humanitarian Affairs (DHA), and any modifications thereto published by the National Demining Commission of Mozambique.

12.1 Each land mine clearance serial will receive four weeks' formal training in explosives technology, safety precautions and procedures, land mine and UXO recognition and classification, mine neutralizing and disarming, mine clearance procedures, and team operations. Once this initial period has been successfully completed, students will undergo two weeks' on-job training in a mined area under close supervision by the Clearance Team. The Training and Quality Control Team will administer all examinations and tests, and determine capabilities of graduates to undertake further training as Section leaders.

12.2 The Medical Officer will train one person from each Section as a paramedic with particular emphasis upon violent trauma treatment, life stabilization, hygiene, and sanitation. She will also conduct lessons for the entire Team on basic first aid, casualty stabilization, and hygiene. Should the Clearance Team need to be divided into smaller site-specific components, further paramedics will be trained so that each Section has its own paramedic on its separate site. The number of sites may be limited not only by available personnel but also by the availability of trauma kits and evacuation vehicles, of which a minimum of one each is required per clearance site.

LINKAGES AND PARTNERSHIPS

13. CAMEO intends to foster a partnership relationship with COCAMO and the Mozambican NGOs which it assists. The Executive Director CAMEO has discussed this relationship with the Executive Director COCAMO who supports the concept. CAMEO will assist COCAMO with any mine-hazard problems it encounters and will recruit its trainees from a pool proposed by COCAMO through its sponsored NGOs dealing with unemployed youth, reintegration of former soldiers, and the empowerment of rural women. In turn, COCAMO will assist CAMEO personnel to adapt to the specific requirements for working in the Province of Nampula. COCAMO will also help CAMEO to get established in Nampula Province so that CAMEO's operations will be able to begin earlier than otherwise possible.

14. To share technical information and to promote a mutual-support concept, CAMEO will foster linkages with the other mine-specialist NGOs working in the central provinces of Mozambique, and with the United Nations Accelerated Demining Programme operating in the three southern provinces. Furthermore, CAMEO's reporting system will be guided by the requirements of the Mozambican Government's National Demining Commission (Commissão Nacional de Desminagem, or CND), and close links will be established with German Project Coordination which is developing a computerized mine database for the CND. CAMEO will ensure that the program requirements formulated by the CND are reflected in CAMEO's operating procedures. CAMEO will also develop linkages with the French NGO, Handicap International (HI), which is the overall country coordinator on behalf of the CND for land mine awareness education and training.

15. CAMEO will develop close linkages with the provincial government in Nampula, particularly the Ministry of Health which is the provincial agency responsible for emergency services within Nampula. The provincial police communications network will be invaluable to CAMEO's emergency response capability as well as to its reporting function, because normal telephone service is unavailable in the remote areas of Nampula Province.

16. CAMEO intends to link with the Dutch-sponsored NGOs in Nampula because they also have mine-hazard security requirements. The Executive Director CAMEO has discussed these links with the Dutch Ambassador to Mozambique, who has fully supported the development of such links. The Dutch Ambassador has also indicated his Government's potential support for CAMEO to expand its operations to include a Dutch-sponsored component for Nampula.

17. In Canada, CAMEO will encourage partnerships with industrial organizations who wish to transfer technology to Mozambique, and will assist these industries in evaluating their products through field-testing in Nampula. Of particular significance will be industries such as digital mapping and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), mine-protective clothing and equipment, remote mine sensing and clearance, and mine search dogs. It will be incumbent upon these industries to provide their own funding, however, because CAMEO's budget is limited in its capacity to support such activity.

17.1 It should be noted that currently Mozambique does not have a digitized GIS-based mapping capacity, which is essential to priority-setting and decision-making by the national and provincial governments, not only to utilize most effectively their scarce resources in mine-hazard clearance but also to coordinate all other aspects of humanitarian assistance and national development. CAMEO intends to work closely with Canada's Department of National Defence Geomatics Directorate to promote this participation, particularly for the Province of Nampula if it cannot be done for the country as a whole. The hardware currently being installed by GPC at the CND in Maputo does not include a GIS-based digital mapping capacity.

FUNDING REQUIREMENTS AND BUDGETING

18. The total time required for ensuring an appropriate Mozambican capacity to fulfil all the requirements of the project scope is approximately three years, particularly the management and logistics/medical functions. In this proposal for the first year of this mission, the projected cost is disproportionate to the remaining years because of the requirement to procure all vehicles and equipment in the first year. Once the project has been completed, it is planned to turn over all vehicles and equipment to the Mozambican authority for continued land mine action use in the province of Nampula utilizing the personnel trained by CAMEO.

19. The rough order of magnitude costs for this project are: First Year - US$1,900,000; Second Year - US$1,300,000; and Third Year - US$1,100,000. Total three-year project cost = US$4,300,000. The large reduction between the First and Second years is due primarily to equipment purchase, and the reduction between the Second and Third years is due to the expected withdrawal of Canadian expatriate personnel as the Mozambicans assume gradual control of most project functions.

19.1 Since CIDA has already included Mozambique in its support policy and Minister Axworthy has publicly proclaimed his support for humanitarian land mine clearance and victim assistance, it is expected that the approval of a matching grant would be readily forthcoming and would not retard project commencement. It is hoped that CIDA could provide multiplier grants rather than just 1:1, because this project dovetails neatly into their policies. To use the worst case of CIDA matching grants as being 1:1, donors are requested to provide in each of the three years: First Year - US$950,000; Second Year - US$650,000; and Third Year -US$550,000. This paragraph does not apply if the Government agrees to fund the complete project as a separate unsolicited proposal.

19.2 The proposed project's scope can be reduced if the requested funding is not forthcoming, but the alleviation of suffering would be reduced accordingly, and the project would then have to be extended in length to achieve the full capacity-building aspects of its content. CAMEO will also be seeking donations in kind, such as vehicles and communications systems. Should these donations in kind materialize, it would be hoped that the funding level would remain the same so that the project scope could be expanded beyond its current limits.

19.3 Since the costs associated with this project are less than those of the Norwegian People's Aid which is doing similar work in Mozambique in the provinces of Tete, Manica, and Sofala to the same exacting standards which CAMEO requires, it can be concluded that CAMEO will provide a most professional and cost-effective service to the people of Nampula Province.

20. The Project Budget currently provides for the following:

• Movement costs for all personnel to, from, and within Mozambique;
• Full medical and life/accident insurance for all personnel;
• Salaries of all personnel;
• All specialist land mine detection and clearance equipment;
• Surveying and geographical plotting equipment;
• Four-wheel-drive light vehicles and stores trailers;
• Four-wheel-drive stores vehicles c/w water trailers;
• Full rations and potable water for all personnel;
• Medical equipment, instruments, medicines, and drugs required for treatment of illness and injury;
• Explosives, detonating cord, and detonators for the destruction of all land mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO);
• Camp equipment, stores, lighting, auxiliary power unit, fire extinguishers, cooking utensils, etc., for all teams;
• Consumables, such as batteries, fuel, oil, lubricants, spare parts and tires, soap, disinfectants, etc.;
• Local Mozambican facilitation and management support;
• Mozambican customs dues, licence fees, and taxes; and
• Programme management, administration, and logistic support.

20.1 On completion of the project at the end of three years, all vehicles and equipment will be donated to the Province of Nampula for use by the trained Mozambican mine action teams. Should the project be extended beyond three years, this handover would be done only at the end of the project.

CONCLUDING MATERIAL

21. Conclusion. This project is both urgent and essential in order to save lives and ensure no further maiming of Nampulans from the land mine/UXO hazard, of whom women and children are at by far the greatest risk. Canada has the ability to enter the international humanitarian mine clearance sphere, and needs to do so as soon as possible to demonstrate to all nations that Canada is committed to the concept of banning all anti-personnel land mines and to assisting land mine victims. Canadian Military Engineers enjoy an unparalleled international reputation for ingenuity and excellence in operational demining, and former Canadian Military Engineer personnel who make up the majority of CAMEO will project this excellence abroad in the humanitarian demining field.

21.1 Canadian industry has the capacity to support international humanitarian demining in all its aspects, and has a particular world-leading capability in GIS-based digital mapping and remote sensing and detection of land mines. This project, which will be the first Canadian humanitarian land mine/UXO clearance project abroad, will offer to this Canadian industrial base the opportunity of transferring its technology to Mozambique, and by extension, to all 61 countries in the world which are infested with land mines.

22. Recommendation. It is highly recommended that this project begin as soon as possible, because innocent women and children continue to be killed or maimed daily in Mozambique by land mines. The proposed timeframe for the implementation of this project is:

• Initial funding received Jul/Aug 97;
• Reconnaissance in Nampula Province Aug/Sep 97;
• Deploy advance party to set up base Sep/Oct 97;
• Materials arrive, instruction begins Oct/Nov 97;
• First Mine Clearance Course Serial graduates Jan 98; and
• Leadership Training of top graduates begins Feb 98.

23. It is understood that these timings are subject to a number of unforeseen delays and interruptions beyond the control of CAMEO; nevertheless, CAMEO is both privileged and pleased to be the first Canadian mine-specialist NGO to conduct international humanitarian mine clearance and victim assistance in a war-torn society abroad.

24. Programme continuation. This project marks the beginning of CAMEO's presence in Mozambique. Subject to funding, it is intended to expand this programme to other areas of interest such as local manufacture of prosthetics, and to extend the field operations to complete the demining of the Province of Nampula in accordance with the overall provincial emergency plan. It is also foreseen that operations could eventually expand into Cabo Delgado Province should funding become available, because that province also has not had any significant mine clearance to date and the threat there is equal to that in Nampula.