The deployment of United Nations (UN) Blue Helmets (comprising police and military personnel) has reached record highs, numbering at least 100,000. More than one in four Blue Helmets serving in the 16 current UN peacekeeping operations is deployed in South Sudan or Sudan. The Small Arms Survey recently reviewed the 11 peace operations1 undertaken in these two countries from 2002 to 2014. It focused on those authorized by the African Union (AU) and the UN. As in other similar undertakings, peacekeepers in Sudan and South Sudan have worked in environments that are often hostile and in inhospitable terrain where there is little or no peace to keep. Given the nature of their operations, and despite carrying out their duties ably and professionally, these peacekeepers have lost2 weapons and ammunition, often because of simply being in the ‘wrong place at the wrong time’.
This Research Note documents the scale and scope of arms and ammunition diverted from peacekeepers in missions in Sudan and South Sudan. It is based on research the Small Arms Survey has undertaken over the past ten years on arms proliferation and arms holdings in Sudan and South Sudan as part of its Human Diversion of Arms and Ammunition in Peace Operations Observations based on Missions in Sudan and South Sudan
The Note summarizes findings from the most recent HSBA study (Berman and Racovita, 2015; see Figure 1), and draws on a new Small Arms Survey Diversion Dataset that comprises information from various sources, including UN and AU reports, media articles, academic works, and more than 100 interviews with key informants.
It seeks to help peace operations to be more effective by examining the little-studied issue of the diversion of their weapons and ammunition (see Berman and Racovita, 2013).
This Note uses a working definition of diversion as the ‘unauthorized change in possession or use of military materiel (arms, ammunition, parts, and explosives), from holdings or transfers, occurring domestically and internationally’. While recognizing that the diversion of other materiel such as communications equipment, uniforms, and vehicles can also have negative effects on force protection, the study does not address such losses.