They emphasized that mine action programs, often seen as long-term recovery initiatives, are actually life-saving emergency humanitarian interventions.
Child victims of Afghanistan
According to the UN-sponsored Landmine Monitor report, a staggering number 77 percent of all victims in Afghanistan last year were children..
Some 54 people die there each month from explosive remnants of war, giving the country the third highest rate of casualties from explosive devices in the world.
“They tend to be children, mostly boys who are out in the hills tending sheep and goats and who collect things of interest and play with them or throw stones at them and kill or hurt themselves,” said Nick Pond, who leads mine action work at the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).
Despite the urgent need for more deminers to make Afghanistan safe after decades of conflict, a lack of funding has meant the U.N.-led team has “fallen and fallen,” Pond told reporters. “In 2011 there were 15,000 people working in demining and now we have about 1,300.”
The total number of child victims recorded in Afghanistan since 1999 amounts to 30,154 children, “so work in Afghanistan is key to reducing the (global) number of victims,” said Christelle Loupforest, UNMAS representative in Geneva.
He noted that although demining work in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Sudan has recently received better support, the situation in Afghanistan and Nigeria remains dire, with programs facing imminent suspension without new commitments from donors.
“The same goes for our program in Ethiopia,” he said.
- The programs could end in March without an injection of funds
- Afghan children make up the majority of victims; Demining capacity is being reduced.
- Sudan faces serious pollution, but there are only five UNMAS teams there
- Nigerian returnees find hidden explosive threats
- Pollution in Gaza and the West Bank restricts access to aid and endangers civilians
Sudan’s growing dangers
The situation across Sudan is also deeply worrying for landmine clearance teams, who fear for the 1.5 million civilians who have returned to the capital Khartoum, the initial epicenter of the ongoing conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Only five United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) clearance teams are currently working in Sudan and “All of them are in Khartoum, because the need there is very great”explained Sediq Rashid, head of UNMAS in Sudan.
“Many accidents have already happened and it is very, very clear: unexploded ordnance is no different from Afghanistan, Syria or Nigeria.”
The most recent Fasher
Yessumming up Following the situation in El Fasher, the city besieged for more than 500 days until it was recently invaded by RSF forces, Rashid said access remains extremely difficult. He noted that while civilians endured the siege, “the shelling never stopped” and even today “it does not stop completely… there are also reports of the presence of landmines, so it is very worrying.”
Back in Khartoum, he said crews have cleared the runway at the city’s main airport, “so we hope that at some point Khartoum airport will become operational and that will make things a lot easier in terms of deploying humanitarian aid workers to the area.”
Explosive ordnance risk education is provided to internally displaced people at a school in Port Sudan.
Nigerian returnees at risk
In Nigeria, demining teams are concerned that displaced communities – with camps closed and nowhere else to go – risk returning to areas where the remains of deadly explosives may be hidden from view.
Some 80 percent of all civilian casualties occurred in 11 of the 15 return zones, said Edwin Faigmane, head of UNMAS in Nigeria.
In response, UNMAS has trained Nigerian security forces, police and civil defense workers in risk education in unstable and “hard to reach” areas.
The tactic has paid off, Faigmane said, “as we have started to receive reports from police or community members saying they found an item and reported it to authorities or village leaders, who then informed military and security forces.”
Gazans remain in extreme danger
In LoopThe head of UNMAS there, Julius Van Der Walt, noted that two years of intense fighting between Hamas fighters and Israeli forces had left a “absolutely immense” level of pollution.
This directly threatens civilians and obstructs essential support to the Strip’s 2.1 million residents by restricting humanitarian operations, slowing recovery efforts, and making reconstruction extremely dangerous.
People are injured “simply collecting daily necessities,” he said, while many families “have no choice” but to take shelter in areas suspected of containing explosive devices. “There are simply no safer alternatives.”
UNMAS carries out an explosion hazard assessment of a logistics base in Rafah. The explosive device found was marked with warning signs.
The situation in the West Bank worsens
Returning to the West BankMr. Van Der Walt noted the increasing risk of widespread contamination from explosive devices in densely populated areas, refugee camps, urban centers and rural areas. “Communities are forced to live next to mortal remains of war,” he said.
The UN Secretary-General’s Mine Action Campaign was launched on 16 June 2025 to insist on respecting the norms of humanitarian disarmament and accelerate mine action in support of human rights and national development.
The campaign is a call to action to strengthen international disarmament efforts and protect civilians – particularly children, who accounted for 46 percent of victims in 2024 – from the impact of explosive ordnance.