After more than 40 years of war, a child is killed every second day in Afghanistan by landmines or other unexploded ordnance scattered across the country.

“Most of the accidents happen because children play with explosive devices,” explains Nick Pond, head of the mine unit of UNAMA, the UN mission in Afghanistan.

The Soviet PFM-1 anti-personnel mine, for example, looks like a butterfly with two wings and “is very attractive (to children), so they pick it up” from the ground.

“Most ammunition has beautiful colors that attract” children, says Sergeant Hasan Mayar of the British organization Halo Trust.

“The most dangerous are the 40mm NATO shells” used in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021. “Because of their yellow head, kids think they’re gold and try to dig them up,” he notes.

The deadly “game”

In the village of Nokordak, two children were killed in April, two 14-year-old boys.

“People said there were mines in that area, but there had never been such an accident in the village,” says the brother of one of the victims.

In the village of Patanaye, 50 kilometers away, 13-year-old Sagent shows his arm and leg covered in gauze. He survived a landmine accident, but his brother Taha, 11, was killed when he found a landmine while tending sheep.

“There are many such accidents,” says their father Shiraz Ahmad. “Tomorrow someone else’s son may be maimed or killed. We ask the government to remove the mines”, he emphasizes.

“Lack of resources” and the Taliban’s attitude

Demining started as early as 1988, but due to continuous conflict, many areas of Afghanistan were once again littered with mines and other munitions.

“It’s almost impossible to know the current level of contamination” from these explosive devices, 82% of whose victims are children, Nick Pond said.

The Taliban government “fully supports demining and wants to move forward,” he assures.

But, as Halo’s Zampto Mayar explains, “there is a lack of resources,” so demining teams are moving piecemeal as donations from abroad arrive.

Recently, members of the demining team of the British organization unearthed a mine in Ghazni, and then proceeded to a controlled explosion.

But before that happened, a Taliban on a motorcycle shouted at them: “Give her to me! I’ll keep her safe at home. We may have to use it later, when Afghanistan is again occupied.”

The mine “wasn’t that dangerous as it hadn’t exploded in so many years,” he insisted.

Photo AP file: Mohammed Mahdi, who lost his leg in a landmine explosion, waits for a Red Cross medic at his home in Kabul, Afghanistan – August 2004