Angela Trott. the Charge D’affairs of the British Embassy in Luanda attended an arms disposal ceremony on Tuesday 14 April as part of a British Government co-funded project with the HALO Trust.

The project began in April 2006 as part of the Weapons and Ammunition Disposal (WAD) programme in Angola. Since then, more than 20,000 small arms and light weapons have been destroyed.

Following a 30-year civil war in the Angolan government implemented a disarmament campaign that resulted in the storing by security forces of a large number of unwanted weapons.

The HALO trust have developed a strong working relationship with the Angolan Army which allow them to store thousands of those weapons at the Army HQ for HALO for destruction. The HALO trust is also working with both the Army and the Air Force to destroy stockpiles of unwanted redundant ammunition.

Such stockpiles have either deteriorated to the point of instability, and thus threatening the civilian population who live around the military bases and airports, or remain stable and as such could be used to destabilise civil society across the region.  

In the wake of the national elections held last year, the Angolan Government implemented a police-led national civil disarmament campaign to encourage citizens to surrender unlicensed weapons and the HALO trust has been asked to provide teams to destroy weapons surrendered thought this process in a mixture of public and private activity.

With the support of the British Government HALO has been contributing towards peace and stability within Angola and the region by removing threats to security, encouraging the Government of Angola to take a positive lead in security sector transformation, post-conflict stabilization and demilitarization.