By Behzad Sadiq
On a hot summer morning, 16-year-old Ahmadullah took his flock of sheep to a part of the village to graze. He hadn’t gone far from his home when he stepped on a mine. In an instant, the world went dark. When he could see again, he saw his life would never be the same.
“A year ago, when the Taliban came, I felt that it was safe,” he told Rukhshana Media. “But one morning, I went with my flock of sheep to the right side of the village where there was a security checkpoint in the past. I went a little further towards the hill when my leg hit a mine, I didn’t understand what had happened. When I opened my eyes in the hospital, I realized that one of my legs was missing.
Ahmadullah is waiting to receive a prosthetic leg. He can’t help his father with work as he did before.
His village is in the Mizan district of the southern province of Zabul. It was one of the most insecure provinces in the war because of constant Taliban raids. They would lay mines to injure government soldiers and stop them advancing. The mine that blew off Amidullah’s leg had been planted near a security checkpoint beside his home.
Mohammad Reza Khalid is a provincial official in charge of preventing mine injuries. He says 16 children have been killed by mines and 19 children wounded. Five children lost their arms or legs.
The incidents have happened all over Zabul province, from the capital Qalat to the districts of Mizan, Siori, Shinkai, Shahjoy, and Shahr-e-Safa.
Khaled confirmed that most of the incidents involved mines laid in the Taliban’s 20-year-war against the former government. But he claimed the number of injuries was decreasing thanks to partner NGOs identifying where the mines are and warning the public.
The war is over. but not the casualties
The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021 ended fighting in the southern provinces. But for residents, the deaths and injuries caused by land mines continue.
The Taliban disarmed many of the IEDs it planted. But some individuals who planted mines were killed in the war leaving no record of where the land mines are.
Southern provinces have the biggest number of unaccounted mines thanks to the most intensive fighting over 20 years. Zabul province is among the worst.
Some residents say they cannot go to deserts and hillsides with peace of mind because they fear they could trigger a mine at any moment. Nor can they take cattle to graze in the desert and distant fields. They say there are even mines on farmland.
A child was injured in a mine explosion in Zabul province/ photo: Rukhshana media.
Siori was another insecure district of Zabul during the war. It is located about 20 km from Qalat city and it is said that Mullah Omar, the former leader of the Taliban, is buried there.
Abdul Malik, 35 is a resident of the Badin area of Siori district. His 12-year-old son Hashmatullah was out grazing his flock when he picked up and played with some ordnance. It exploded and maimed his face and hands.
“About six months had passed since the Taliban regained power, one evening I was working in the garden when people reported that Hashmatullah was wounded,” Abdul Malik says. “We transferred him to the hospital. He was more injured on his face and hands, and one of his hands was amputated.”
Abdul Malik says the incident has left his son distraught and isolated. He wants the Taliban and NGOs to neutralize remaining landmines and inform the people so that nobody suffers the fate of his son.
Planting explosive devices was one of the Taliban’s main tactics in its war with the previous government. IEDs in particular were used against international combat forces and the Afghan army.
In 2018, Afghanistan’s demining organization estimated that 400 km of land had been contaminated with mines. In recent years all landmines were laid by the Taliban.
One man, who uses the pseudonym Mohammad Nabi, says he planted hundreds of barrels of mines for the Taliban. He started working for the group as a communications agent when he was 19. Then he was moved to the mine-planting section. He is now 27.
He says more than 300 of his hand-made mines blew up military vehicles. About 300 more were discovered by the former government’s forces and neutralized.
“Since the beginning of my jihad, I have planted 600 mines. If the (enemy) changed their route, I would replant the mines,” he says.
It was dangerous work. He and his comrades were also required to fight and some were killed or injured by their own devices when they were planting them. In such cases, nobody knew what types of mines they had planted or where.
Every now and then, abandoned mines explode.
“They are the mines that were left by minelayers who died. We have no information about how to neutralize them.”
Mohammad Reza Khalid says their latest survey suggests 20 per cent of Zabul’s land has still not been cleared of landmines. Even some districts in the capital, Qalat have unexploded mines.
From highways to cities and villages, these mines have killed many and caused huge financial damage to public infrastructure.
A source in Zabul province who did not want to be named, said just one month before the end of the war, the Taliban planted several mines in the China area of Chino area of Shahr-e-Safa district and the areas of Umkai and Srukhgan around the security posts of the former government. Most of those mines have not been neutralized.
The danger of unexploded mines is not limited to the Taliban era. Thousands of kilometers of land in Afghanistan were contaminated with mines during the war between the former Soviet forces and the Afghan Mujahideen. Afghanistan is one of the most dangerous countries for unexploded ordnance. And children are among the main victims.
