As part of FSD’s “Capacity Building Support” project for the Sudan Integrated Mine Action Service (SIMAS), the board member and FSD President Henri Leu attended the SIMAS Board meeting held at Rock City Hotel in Juba, South Sudan on 19th September 2007.

Also in attendance were William Makuac Bol (Chairman of the Board of SIMAS), Rev. William Chan Achuil (Member of the Board of SIMAS and Deputy Chairperson of the Southern Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission), Gregori Vasili (SIMAS Founder and Member of the Board), Madut Akol (Executive Director of SIMAS) and Karen Culver (FSD Project Manager). Christoph Lang, co-ordinator of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation SDC, joined the meeting later as a representative of the donor community.

SIMAS as a formal FSD partner since 2004 has been supporting our large scale demining projects in South Sudan since the start. During the meeting, FSD and SIMAS representatives signed now an additional agreement governing the “Capacity Building Support” which FSD is currently extending to SIMAS.

This “Capacity Building programme” has been designed to assist SIMAS to gain accreditation to conduct mine action operations independently and to develop the management, administrative, financial and logistic capacities needed to support mine action operations efficiently.  This programme is primarily funded by Switzerland (Political Division IV) and by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA).

During his visit to South Sudan, Leu also met with Jurkuc Barac (Director of the South Sudan Demining Commission), with Simon Porter and Paul Eldred (Deputy Programme Manager and Regional Operations Coordinator of the UN Mine Action Office, respectively) and with a UNHCR delegation in Juba, in view of the development of SIMAS demining projects for 2008.

Furthermore, Henri Leu also visited the SIMAS demining team working under FSD supervision at the Rajah East minefield, located some 25 km from Juba. Tens of accidents involving villagers and cattle have occurred at this location, where returning refugees and internally displaced persons are expected to resettle. Within the first two months of operations, six M14 landmines have been already been detected and destroyed by the SIMAS teams.