UNMAS Delivers Weapon Cutting Facility in Mali

4 Nov 2014

UNMAS Delivers Weapon Cutting Facility in Mali

At a ceremony on 16 October, the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) handed over a weapon cutting facility to the Malian Defence Forces at the Kati Army Garrison, located North-East of Bamako. The new facility has already begun operations to destroy 10,000 un-serviceable or obsolete handguns and rifles. 

Attending the ceremony were the Malian Army's General Chief of Staff and Defence Attachés, and representatives of the Governments of Germany and the United States who co-funded the project. Representing UNMAS were Chief of Programmes Paul Heslop and Programme Manager Charles Frisby.

“With this project”, Frisby explained at the ceremony, “UNMAS is able to improve stockpile security and reduce the risk of illicit trafficking from national arsenals.”

UNMAS built and tested the facility and trained Malian soldiers to use it. 

Permanently destroying surplus or obsolete weapons means that they do not need to be stored and guarded. Often as part of a disarmament processes UNMAS is requested to destroy the guns that are relinquished.  

In 2014 UNMAS supplied equipment and trained national security services to cut weapons in the Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Mali and Somalia.

The UNMAS programme in Mali is an integral part of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission (MINUSMA) which was established pursuant to Security Council resolution 2100, under the terms of which the mission is mandated, inter alia, to ensure the safe and effective management, storage and security of stockpiles and the collection and/or destruction of surplus, seized, unmarked or illicitly held weapons.