Chad

The National High Commission for Demining (Haut Commissariat National au Déminage, HCND) reported initiating mine clearance in 2023 using national funding. In the process, Chad cleared a total of 1.69km² of hazardous area resulting in the destruction of five anti-personnel (AP) mines. In Tibesti, the team experienced a security incident at Hadjar-Magdoud minefield in the Kori-Bogodi area and operations were suspended. At the end of 2023, 119 mined areas remained in Chad, covering a total area of approximately 77.6km², along with two mined areas recently discovered at Nohi and Mounou, in Ennedi East province, which still require technical survey (TS). Given the scale of the remaining challenge, in 2024, Chad submitted a new request to extend its deadline under Article 5 of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention (APMBC), which will be considered at the Fifth Review Conference in November 2024.

Lack of consistent data prevents a precise determination of what Chad was able to release during the €23 million European Union-funded PRODECO project implemented between 2017 and 2022. Chad’s annual Article 7 reports presented a total of 3.34km² of AP mine clearance in the last five years. However, Chad reported a higher surface of 5.25km² of land released by clearance in its 2022–24 work plan and its 2024 Article 5 deadline extension request, a figure Mine Action Review could not reconcile with available data.

Following the conclusion of the PRODECO project, survey and clearance by international operators did not take place for almost two years until the end of 2023 when Mines Advisory Group (MAG) and the HCND began implementing a one-year project supported by France. It involves battle area clearance (BAC), spot-task explosive ordnance disposal (EOD), and explosive ordnance risk education, in four western provinces, and focuses on explosive remnants of war (ERW) and improvised explosive devices (IEDs), but will not address conventional AP mined areas. The Chadian government funded some clearance of explosive ordnance in 2022 and 2023, believed to be the first national funding of operations for some years. However, the tasks mainly involved BAC in the conflict-affected provinces of Kanem North, Borkou, and Ennedi East and West provinces after clashes between armed groups and the armed forces in 2021.

• Chad should reinforce its resource mobilisation efforts to raise the necessary international funds and receive technical and operational support to enable it to fulfil its APMBC Article 5 obligations.
• Chad should urgently clear the Ouadi Doum minefield that is thought to provide material for the production of IEDs by non-State armed groups (NSAGs) in the Sahel region.
• Chad should report on its contamination and land release by disaggregating areas of AP mine or mixed mine contamination from those areas solely containing other types of explosive ordnance contamination not covered by the APMBC, such as ERW.
• Chad should increase the accuracy of its mine action information management system and its consequent reporting under the APMBC.

Click here to download the "Clearing the Mines 2024" report for Chad.