Morocco Reiterates Attachment to Fundamental Humanitarian Principles of Anti-personnel Landmine Convention

23 November 2020 Printable Version

Geneva - Morocco reiterated in Geneva its attachment to the fundamental humanitarian principles of the Anti-personnel Landmine Convention.

The Kingdom of Morocco is actively participating, through its Royal Armed Forces and experts from different departments and civil society, in all meetings of the Convention. It respects its foundations and humanitarian principles and contributes on a voluntary basis to its strengthening through the voluntary submission of the National Transparency Report, by virtue of its article 7, affirmed the Permanent Representative of Morocco to the United Nations Office in Geneva, Ambassador Omar Zniber, who was speaking during the general debate of the 18th Meeting of States Parties to the Anti-personnel Landmine Convention, held last week in Geneva.

Adherence to the Ottawa Convention remains a national priority, which will be immediately honored after the resolution of the artificial regional dispute over the Moroccan Sahara, he said.

He highlighted the efforts undertaken by the Moroccan authorities, in accordance with international commitments, since 1975 and under the Agreement signed with MINURSO in 1999, relating to the sharing of information, the marking of mine areas, mine clearing and destruction of mines and unexploded remains.

Zniber said 13 mine clearing modules are deployed on the ground at all times. Between January 2014 and September 2020, only 377 mine clearing detachments were deployed, while 964 emergency interventions were carried out during the same period.

All of these operations eliminated the threat over an area of 5,763.88 km², by discovering and neutralizing 96,758 landmines, including 49,336 anti-personnel mines and 21,035 Explosive Remnants of War, he added.

He also recalled that the Kingdom conducted multiple awareness-raising campaigns on the risks of mines and explosive remnants of war, at the level of the southern provinces of the Kingdom, through the regional offices of the departments concerned in cooperation with the Moroccan Red Crescent, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and a large number of civil society actors.

These campaigns have benefited 83,545 people (47.6% women) including 52,910 children, he said.