In May 2008, a young girl found an unusual object lying in the drainage ditch next to her home in Wau town, West Bahr al Ghazal state, southern Sudan. She noticed the object was shiny and thought it was something she could play with: not realising it was dangerous she picked it up and showed it to her brother Malik Lual and sister Akual Francis.
Twelve-year-old Malik took the item and pulled the wire attached to it. The object then began to smoke and Malik moved away from the item, but before he could get a decent distance away it exploded. Shrapnel from the explosion spread in all directions, causing Malik to receive injuries to his right bicep, left heel, right calf, chest and his hip. Akual sustained an injury to her right leg. The young boy required an operation to remove the pieces of shrapnel in his body.
"I will not play again with any suspicious objects," Malik said. "I was only confused by the shining of the object... as a result of shining objects our mother and me are suffering."
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Malik Luai required an operation to remove the pieces of shrapnel in his body. [photo: MAG Sudan] |
The explosion left a small hole in the ground, the main force of the explosion was in an upwards direction. This plus the description of the object would suggest it was a grenade.
There is a possibility that the object had been carried along the ditch after heavy rains, but the family are of the opinion that the object was likely to have been dropped by someone, because it was found on a main pathway crossing the ditch. They believe if it had been there any length of time, which it would have been if the water had carried it, an adult would have noticed it.
MAG's Community Liaison Officers visited the family the day after the incident and gathered information to complete a victim and incident report, which was then submitted to the Regional Mine Action Office and the United Nations Mine Action Office's (UNMAO) Victim Assistant Specialist.
UNMAO's Victim Assistant Specialist has put the family in contact with a local mine victim organisation who will provide additional support to Malik, his sister Akal and their family.
Links:
» MAG’s work in Sudan is currently funded by: Bureau of Population,
Refugees, and Migration, U.S. Department of State; DFID (UK Department
for International Development); EuropeAid; Japanese Government; Office of
Weapons Removal and Abatement, Bureau of Political-Military Affairs,
U.S. Department of State; Royal Government of the Netherlands; Stichting Vluchteling; Survey
Action Centre; United Nations; World Food Programme.
8 September 08
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