South/Central Somalia and especially the capital of Somalia, Mogadishu, has suffered from the worst effects of almost continuous armed violence since the collapse of the Siad Barre regime in 1991. This has been linked to successive periods of inter clan fighting that have pitted the so-called warlords against one another, seen the rise of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), and subsequent emergence of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) that, backed by Ethiopian forces and Africa Union Peacekeepers, has been engaged in fighting and active insurgency in Mogadishu and the South/Central parts of the country.

This conflict has lead to many thousands of direct deaths, the destruction of physical infrastructures, severe degradation of basic services, widespread displacement of residents into IDP settlements, and an environment of corruption, extortion, menace, fear and uncertainty that has stymied recovery and the delivery of humanitarian aid.

According to the UN, the number of people requiring humanitarian and emergency livelihoods support is almost 3.2 million.

Another negative consequence of this situation has been the contamination of the country, and the capital especially, by the Explosive Remnants of War (ERW).

DDG interventions
In October 2007 DDG established a Humanitarian Mine Action (HMA) programme based out of existing DRC offices in Mogadishu.

This was directly linked to the garbage collection activities of local NGO, Saacid, and aimed to reduce the risk presented by Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) to its staff as they removed rubbish from the city.

In a complementary fashion, DDG was also able to extend activities into survey of parts of the city that were contaminated by ERW, compilation of updated ERW threat maps, facilitation of the disposal of ERW located, and more latterly, a broader programme of MRE to city residents and IDPs. Thus, by the end of 2008, DDG had:

• Provided Mine Risk Education/Basic UXO recognition training to 750 Saacid workers
• Facilitated the marking or safe disposal of 261 items of UXO
• Completed 55 Danger Area Reports in IMSMA format
• Compiled updated city ERW threat maps
• Facilitated 53 items of UXO disposal by African Union peacekeeping
• Delivered MRE to 26,776 city residents mainly displaced within IDP camps
• Reported ERW-related victims to SOMAC, all caused by UXO’s

Future activities
Following DDG Somalia’s overall goal of assisting the Somali people with support to the repatriation of IDPs and refugees through the recreation of an environment free of the threat of landmines and ERW, DDG hope to expand its EOD and MRE capacity by the end of 2009 and security permitting, to facilitate a safe return of the more than 920,000 IDP’s in Somalia.