As Syrians return after the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad, they face the danger of millions of unexploded land mines and munitions from the country’s 13-year civil war.
The live ordnance is littered across vast swaths of Syria, the nonprofit HALO Trust warned Saturday, and poses a severe threat. The organization called for an international cleanup effort.
“I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” said Damian O’Brien, Syria program manager for the Scotland-based humanitarian group. “Tens of thousands of people are passing through heavily mined areas on a daily basis, causing unnecessary fatal accidents.”
An international effort to remove the explosives is urgently needed, HALO said. The organization is “desperately understaffed,” O’Brien said, with funding for only 40 de-miners.
The UN says around a third of the population of Syria are affected by some form of explosives contamination, with the highest percentages in the governorates of Quneitra, Al-Sweida, Rural Damascus, Aleppo, Idlib, Al-Raqqa, Deir Ezzor, Daraa, and Damascus.
HALO is operating an emergency hotline in the northwest of the country.
Mouiad Alnofoly, HALO Syria Operations Manager, said: “In the past week, as people have tried returning to their homes and farmland, we have had a ten-fold increase in calls to the hotline. The phone is ringing non-stop.
“Some of the callers are refugees coming back to Syria. Others are people who were displaced inside the country and are now making their way back home. But they’re all in mortal danger if they take the wrong pathway. None of them know where the landmines are hidden,” he added.
