UN sounds alarm as landmine deaths rise due to funding cuts

Speaking on the sidelines of a key international meeting for action against landmines at the UN in Geneva, landmine experts explained how dwindling resources in Afghanistan and Nigeria have exposed civilians to unexploded ordnance.

They emphasized that mine action programs, often seen as long-term recovery initiatives, are in fact emergency humanitarian interventions that save lives.

Child victims in Afghanistan

According to the Landmine Monitor report in partnership with the UN, a staggering 77 percent of all casualties in Afghanistan last year were children.

Some 54 people are killed there each month by explosive remnants of war, placing the country third in the world for the rate of casualties from explosive ordnance.

“It’s usually children, mostly boys in the hills, looking after the sheep and goats and picking up interesting objects and playing with them or throwing stones at them and killing or injuring themselves,” said Nick Pond, who leads the mine action work at the Centre. United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).

Despite the urgent need for more deminers to keep Afghanistan safe after decades of conflict, a lack of funding meant the UN-led team had “fallen and given up”, Mr Pond told reporters. “In 2011, 15,000 people worked on mine clearance, and today we have around 1,300.”

The total number of child victims recorded in Afghanistan since 1999 stands at 30,154 children, “work in Afghanistan is therefore essential to reduce the number of child victims. [global] number of victims,” declared Christelle Loupforest, UNMAS representative in Geneva.

She 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 under threat of imminent suspension without further commitments from donors.

“It’s the same for our program in Ethiopia,” she said.

Sudan’s growing dangers

The situation across Sudan is also deeply worrying for overworked mine 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).

Just five United Nations Mine Action Services (UNMAS) are at work in Sudan today and “They are all in Khartoum, because the needs there are so great,” explained Sediq Rashid, head of UNMAS in Sudan.

“Many accidents have already occurred and it is very clear: unexploded ordnance is no different from that in Afghanistan, Syria or Nigeria.”

El Fasher the last

Ssummarize Regarding the situation in El Fasher, the town besieged for more than 500 days until recently invaded by RSF forces, Mr. Rashid said that access remains extremely difficult. He stressed that although civilians endured the siege, “the bombings never stopped” and even today “[it] “The situation is not completely over… There are also reports of landmines, so it is very worrying.”

Back in Khartoum, he said teams have cleared the runway at the city’s main airport, “so we hope that at some point the Khartoum airport will become functional and that will make things a lot easier in terms of the deployment of aid workers to the area.”

Nigerian returnees at risk

In Nigeria, bomb disposal teams fear that displaced communities – with camps closed and no other place to go – risk returning to areas where deadly explosive remnants may be hidden.

At least 80 percent of all civilian casualties occurred in 11 of the 15 return areas, said Edwin Faigmane, head of UNMAS in Nigeria.

In response, UNMAS trained Nigerian security forces, police and civil protection in risk education in unstable and “hard to reach” areas.

This tactic paid off, Faigmane said, “as we started to receive reports from the police or community members saying they had found an object and reported it to village authorities or village chiefs, who then reported it to security and military forces.”

Gazans still in extreme danger

In Gaza, UNMAS chief Julius Van Der Walt noted that two years of intensive fighting between Hamas fighters and Israeli forces had left an “absolutely immense level of contamination.

This directly threatens civilians and obstructs essential support for the Gaza Strip’s 2.1 million residents by restricting humanitarian operations, slowing recovery efforts and making reconstruction extremely dangerous.

People are being injured “simply collecting daily necessities,” he said, while many families “have no choice” but to shelter in areas suspected of containing explosive ordnance. “Safer alternatives simply do not exist. »

UNMAS conducts explosion risk assessment of logistics base in Rafah. The explosive ordnance found was marked with warning signs.

The situation in the West Bank is getting worse

Turning to the West BankMr. Van Der Walt highlighted the growing risk of widespread contamination from explosive ordnance in densely populated areas, refugee camps, urban centers and rural areas. “Communities are forced to live side by side with the deadly remnants of war,” he said.

The UN Secretary-General’s Mine Action Campaign launched on June 16, 2025 to emphasize respect for the norms of humanitarian disarmament – ​​and to 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 casualties in 2024 – from the impact of an explosive ordnance.