Brazilian Minister for Defence, Celso Amorim, will today deliver two helicopters to Santa Cruz in eastern Bolivia to aid with the battle against drugs and crime on the border which the two countries share, an official source informed yesterday.

The two H-1H helicopters will be destined only for use as part of the anti-drug plan enacted between the two countries. The agreement, which was made last year by Bolivia’s president Dilma Rousseff, said that the fight against drugs should focus on the shared borders, which stretch for more than 3,400 kilometres.

The arrival of these two helicopters will “make explicit the compromise of the two countries to cooperate in the area, paying special vigilance to the airspace and combatting illicit cross-border drug trafficking”, said a Brazilian legation in La Paz.

Other commitments to be fulfilled are the donation of helicopters called Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (VANT). These will control the airspace, detecting drug factories in Bolivia even in the jungle, where many of the country’s drug manufacturers have hidden their bases.

Bolivia is the world’s third-largest cultivator of coca leaf, primary ingredient in cocaine. However, the UN has recently revealed a 12% decrease in production of the plant, a positive result of the war against drugs that the country has been fighting.