With safe behaviour awareness so low in Moba Port that even police forces were moving items of unexploded ordnance (UXO) and throwing them into rivers, MAG began a strong Mine Risk Education (MRE) programme last year and continues to work regularly in the south-eastern village.
Located on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in Katanga Province, Moba was a strategic port during the Second Congo War from 1998 to 2003 and is part of the so-called “Triangle of Death” where heavy fighting took place – and which is consequently one of the areas most contaminated by UXO in the country.
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Calvin, a MAG Community Liaison Officer, explains Mine Risk Education (MRE) leaflets to Jeremie and Jo. Both boys were injured - one had a serious cut to the head, the other had shrapnel damage to his thigh, both had burns - when a piece of metal they found exploded when they were playing with it. "We did not know it was UXO," said Jona, "we thought it was part from a bicycle.” |
The first part of the MRE programme involved radio broadcasts on Radio Communautaire de Moba (RCM) and Radio Majengo with messages from Papa Wemba – the well-known Congolese signer who became “Ambassador Against Mines” during a UNICEF-funded MAG project in 2007 – in French, Swahili and Lingala, plus an interview with two MAG Community Liaison Officers (CLOs) describing the work of MAG in the area. The Papa Wemba messages were repeated three times a day for a week on RCM.
The second part saw targeted MRE activity in each of the 24 primary schools in Moba Port and Kirungu, reaching a total of 12,956 children. Primary school MRE engages children by teaching them a song in stages. The song is sung in Swahili but translates as:
“Mines, mines, mines are dangerous; Bombs, bombs, bombs are dangerous; Don’t touch them! Don’t move them! Tell MAG! Mines, mines, mines are dangerous; Bombs, bombs bombs are dangerous.”
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Calvin talks to the Headmaster of Muhila 1 Primary School, one of 24 primary schools targeted by MAG during its MRE campaign. |
Children were heard singing this song as they washed their clothes on the beach during the days that followed the MRE programme and as MAG vehicles passed in the street – qualitative evidence of a successful campaign.
The third aspect involved working with two recent survivors of a UXO accident, Jeremie and Jona, as well as Jeremie’s mother. The two boys had found a piece of metal on the road on their way home from school. “We did not know it was UXO. We thought it was part from a bicycle”, explains Jona.
They took it home to use as the ‘jack’ in a local game similar to marbles. Everything was fine for a couple of days and then, on one unlucky roll of a mud ball, the bicycle part exploded. From their descriptions, it was probably a fuse for a mortar. The boys were lucky: one had a serious cut to the head, the other had shrapnel damage to his thigh, both had burns. But, after three days in hospital and a few weeks of healing, they were fine.
While interviewing the two survivors, Calvin, a MAG CLO, discovered that Jeremie’s mother had told her son to say that the scars he carried were a result of falling off his bicycle, not that he had had a UXO accident. She wanted to hide the truth because she was frightened of the military. There is no current military threat to civilians in Moba Port, but many people are still scared. During the war, anything that attracted military attention, such as evidence of explosives at a house, as this accident was, could result in unpleasant or even fatal consequences.
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A student identifies a grenade during an MRE session at Muhila 1 Primary School. [photos: MAG DRC] |
People have not forgotten this. Discovering that the boy was being prevented from giving “stay safe” messages to his friends, classmates and family, Calvin made an arrangement to speak with the mother about the accident. After two meetings, the mother was convinced that the family would not suffer from speaking openly about the accident and, in fact, could use this experience to help keep other people safe.
Due directly to MAG’s work with Jona, Jeremie and his mother, these three people are now speaking openly about their experience and using it to educate others in the area. All three appeared on the two local radio stations, with an estimated combined audience of 84,000, to give “stay safe” messages to the local population. Messages from a member of the local community are generally much stronger than when MAG employees give them.
MAG has been working in the area since 2004 with two clearance and community liaison teams, funded in recent years by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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2 September 08
