Second Assistance and Protection Training Course for Instructors from States Parties in Africa

The OPCW and the South Africa Council for the Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction co-organised the second assistance-and-protection training course for instructors from Africa from 9 to 20 September 2013 in Tshwane. Participating in the training were 14 instructors from 10 States Parties in the region* who will train emergency response personnel for chemical weapons incidents in their own countries.

The course, held at Dithlo Airbase in Tshwane, included lectures on how to prepare a training course in response to a chemical weapons incident, and information on protection against chemicals, detection and decontamination. The participants engaged in table-top and practical exercises in the use of chemical protective equipment, sampling, detection, and decontamination techniques in response to attacks with toxic chemicals.

* Algeria, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Madagascar, Morocco, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda, with one observer from Brazil.