Even in Peacetime, the Remnants of War Keep Claiming Lives
Invisible Killers Lie in Wait Where Conflicts Have Ended — or Never Truly Ended
Geneva: Wars may end, but their deadly legacy does not. In Afghanistan, 54 people die every month from leftover explosives, three-quarters of them children, while fewer than 1,300 deminers struggle to clear decades of remnants. The human story behind those numbers is devastatingly simple. Nick Pond, head of mine action at the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), explained, “It tends to be kids, mostly boys in the hills tending sheep and goats, and they are picking up things of interest and playing with them or throwing stones at them and killing or injuring themselves.” Parents bury children for picking up objects glittering in sunlight; shepherds never return from grazing routes that families once trusted. Christelle Loupforest, United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) representative in Geneva, captured the global significance of Afghanistan’s situation: “So the work in Afghanistan is key to decreasing the [global] number of casualties.” And yet, despite 30,154 child casualties since 1999 and despite the urgency repeatedly documented by the UN, funding has fallen so sharply that the demining workforce has collapsed from 15,000 in 2011 to 1,300 today. Without new support, mine action programmes in Afghanistan and Nigeria are projected to close by March.
The tragedy unfolding in Afghanistan is not unique; it has become a template of what post-conflict survival now looks like in many parts of the world. Nowhere is this more evident than in Sudan. There, the end of active fighting in some regions has led displaced families to attempt the dangerous journey back home, only to discover that war continues in another form — silent, unseen, buried. Only five UNMAS explosive ordnance clearance teams operate in all of Sudan, and all are located in Khartoum, attempting to protect 1.5 million people. “Lots of accidents happened already, and it’s very, very clear: unexploded ordnance is not different from Afghanistan or Syria or Nigeria,” warned Sediq Rashid, UNMAS chief in Sudan. Even after the city of El Fasher was overrun following a siege that lasted more than 500 days, relief for civilians did not arrive. “The shelling never stopped while people endured the siege, and even today it is not completely stopped… There are reports of the presence of landmines as well, so it’s very concerning,” Rashid added. A rare success — clearing the runway at Khartoum Airport to allow humanitarian deliveries — stands in stark contrast to the vast neighbourhoods, market areas, farming land and transport corridors that remain unassessed and perilous.
The risks confronting Sudanese civilians closely parallel those faced by communities returning to their homes in Nigeria. After years of displacement, families are beginning to rebuild, yet unexploded ordnance lies in fields, near schools, inside abandoned houses and across transport routes. According to Edwin Faigmane, UNMAS chief in Nigeria, 80 per cent of civilian casualties occur in just 11 of 15 areas of return. But unlike in Afghanistan and Sudan, one promising adaptation has emerged: a grassroots reporting system. “We have begun receiving reports back from the police or from community members saying that they found an item and that they’ve reported it to the village authorities or village leaders, who then reported on to the security and the military forces,” Faigmane said. This initiative has helped prevent incidents, yet it is far from a guarantee of safety. Many vulnerable communities remain beyond the reach of risk-education teams due to insecurity, poor roads and persistent displacement. For now, survival depends largely on luck and on whether someone spots danger before a child does.
From Africa and South Asia, the same pattern extends to the Middle East — but with a scale that has few precedents. In Gaza, 2.1 million people are living amid what UN experts describe as one of the densest explosive contamination environments in recorded history after two years of intense fighting between Hamas and Israeli forces. This is not the familiar post-conflict challenge where clearance begins after hostilities; rather, civilians must navigate explosive hazards throughout daily life, without the option of waiting for safety. Julius Van Der Walt, head of UNMAS Gaza, described what ordinary routines now look like: “People are being injured simply by collecting basic necessities on a day-to-day basis, while many families have no choice but to shelter in areas suspected of containing explosive ordnance. Safer alternatives simply do not exist.” The situation in the West Bank — though less visible internationally — follows the same trajectory of growing exposure in densely populated areas, spanning refugee camps, cities and agricultural terrains.
Across all these geographies, the same bitter conclusion emerges: even after the guns fall silent, wars continue to kill. The United Nations Secretary-General’s global campaign on mine action, launched on 16 June 2025, appeals for renewed commitment to humanitarian disarmament and accelerated clearance operations. Its urgency is grounded not in abstract diplomatic language but in relentless arithmetic: children accounted for 46 per cent of global casualties in 2024. UN deminers and humanitarian agencies are adamant that without immediate international support, decades of unremoved ordnance will continue to shape where people can walk, farm, build, live, and play — ensuring that the deadliest consequences of war are not confined to the battlefield.
– global bihari bureau
