KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, says that explosive remnants of war claimed the lives of at least 800 people in Afghanistan last year, the majority of whom were children.
In a video shared on social media on Tuesday, May 21, the UN official said that he recently visited Afghanistan in an effort to find a lasting solution to the issue of unexploded devices, a problem the country has been grappling with for decades.
“I just returned from Afghanistan where I witnessed the terrible impact of explosive devices on communities,” said Mr. Lacroix, commending the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) and other UN partners on the ground for their life-saving efforts.
“Afghanistan has been dealing with mine problem for many decades and they have been very effective in training people and building the kind of skill set that is essential,” he said.
Afghanistan, plagued by decades of conflict and violence, particularly the Taliban insurgency over the past two decades, remains one of the world’s most contaminated regions with remnants of war, including landmines and unexploded ordnance.
The United Nations reported last year that nearly 57,000 civilians have either lost their lives or sustained injuries in Afghanistan due to landmines and explosive remnants of war since 1989.
Children have been particularly vulnerable to fatal or life-changing injuries as they have been unintentionally stepping on landmines or picking up unexploded ordnance littered around the places they stay or play.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported last month that between January 2022 and February 2024, at least 1,401 people have been killed or injured by explosive remnants of war. The UN noted that approximately 86% of the casualties were children.
In a report released last year, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) emphasized the pressing need to intensify efforts to address the issue of weapon contamination in the conflict-ridden, impoverished country.
The ICRC documented that 640 children were killed or injured in 541 incidents involving landmine explosions and explosive remnants between January 2022 and June 2023. “This is nearly 60 percent of the total number of civilian casualties (1,092 people) because of UXO-related incidents,” ICRC said.
The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan and its subsequent restrictions on women and girls have also led many donor countries and organizations, including several mine clearance organizations, to cease operations and withdraw funding.
According to the ICRC, insufficient funding has hampered landmine clearance efforts in Afghanistan. “The dramatic drop in resources and funding had an equally dramatic impact on efforts to clear landmines and unexploded ordnance,” the organization said.
“There is, however, still a desperate need for the international community to provide technical and financial assistance to reduce the number of human casualties caused by unexploded devices,” the organization added.
