Military

16 December 2004 – For the first time since Afghanistan's disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) process was launched more than a year ago, all units in an entire region have been declared disarmed, the United Nations mission reported today.

With more than 6,700 soldiers and officers of the 7th and 8th Corps in Mazar-e Sharif, northern Afghanistan, now disarmed and their units decommissioned, nearly 29,000 military personnel countrywide, or about 60 per cent of the total expected to lay down their weapons, have now done so.

Of these nearly 25,500 have entered Afghanistan's New Beginnings Programme to reintegrate them into civil society with jobs or skills training and support for establishing small businesses, UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) spokesperson Ariane Quentier told a news briefing in Kabul, the Afghan capital.

DDR teams have also secured 7,360 working or repairable heavy weapons in guarded compounds, representing the bulk of heavy weapons in Afghanistan apart from Panjshir in the east where talks are still underway to start the collection.

In answer to questions Ms. Quentier acknowledged that not all the demobilized soldiers receiving training had already found jobs, but she voiced optimism that they would. "Are we confident? Yes we are," she said. "Is it going to be done tomorrow? It might not, it takes time and we are in a rebuilding process."

Among the demobilized are nearly 4,000 boys, 14 to 17 years old. Each child receives a package of support, including medical and psychosocial assessments, briefings on mine risks, drug abuse, HIV/AIDS prevention and basic health education, and training in such fields as agriculture and animal husbandry, tailoring, carpentry, electronics and masonry, UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) spokesman Edward Cawardine said.

UNICEF estimates that there are approximately 8,000 former child soldiers in Afghanistan. Most of them were forcibly conscripted to various fighting forces in the last years of the two decade-long conflict. While many have left their units voluntarily, few have had the chance to rebuild their educational and life skills, and risk being marginalized, Mr. Cawardine said.

The agency now hopes to complete the demobilization programme in provinces of the south, west and south-east of the country not covered in 2004.