One in five Afghans at risk from landmines
One in five Afghans is at risk of being killed or maimed by landmines and unexploded bombs, the world's biggest de-mining charity has warned.
After 40 years of conflict, Afghanistan is second only to Ukraine in terms of its contamination with unexploded ordnance but risks becoming 'a forgotten humanitarian problem'.
Some 6.4 million people – around a fifth of the country's total population – live in areas littered with landmines and unexploded ordnance, The Halo Trust has said in a new analysis of the threat facing Afghans.
As a result, roughly 50 Afghans are being killed or severely wounded in explosive accidents every month.
More than 80 per cent of victims are children, often sent to collect scrap metal that is subsequently sold-on in order for their families to make a living.
The problem has been exacerbated recently by the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees from neighbouring Pakistan and Iran.
Many of those arriving back in the country fled following the Taliban takeover in 2021, and often have few means to support themselves.
The Halo Trust has cleared over 800,000 landmines and 11 million pieces of unexploded ordnance from Afghanistan since it began working in the country in 1998.
But recent cuts to foreign aid spending – particularly USAID, the US's foreign aid agency which was a major funder of international demining programmes – has forced the organisation to cut its mine-clearing staff in Afghanistan by almost half, from 2,200 to 1,000 people.
'Afghanistan is now a forgotten humanitarian problem. The Afghan people have struggled for over four decades of conflict, displacement, poverty, and we need the international community to continue to support people to the end of this journey and not leave them stranded halfway through,' said Dr Farid Homayoun, the Halo Trust's Afghanistan Programme Manager.
Earlier this year, the Halo Trust sounded the alarm after several European countries announced plans to leave the Ottawa Treaty, a landmark agreement introduced in 1997 that bans the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of anti-personnel mines.
Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland announced their intentions to withdraw in April, citing the threat of a Russian attack.
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