Story and photographs by Sean Sutton
MRE or Mine Risk Education is a crucial part of MAG's work in all our programmes and is particularly pertinent to our work in Iraq. The story and photographs below look at how MAG recently used MRE in Ismail Aga village and and displaced civilians from Mosul and Baghdad, now living in Malabrwan village.
MAG Community Liaison Officers Ahmed and Rawshan recently visited Ismail Aga village to demonstrate the use of some new MRE materials including video, posters and flyers. Fikre, the village Mullah (or cleric), has been trained in the past by MAG to MRE lessons to the community. He says: “It is important that the children know about the dangers and that they should stay away from landmines. There have been two accidents here – two too many. Many of the people here leave the village in the summer and live in the mountains with their animals. There are a lot of dangerous areas up there. So you can understand how important these messages are. I am the religious leader here and the people listen to me. The school teacher has also been trained and he teaches the people about mines and unexploded bombs too. MAG has helped us a lot in many ways and we are very grateful.”
Ahmed has been working in this area for the last five years. “This is very important work. All the Mullahs and school teachers have been trained in this region. We also do refresher courses at least every two years. The work has definitely had an impact. There are far fewer accidents than before.”
The village of Ismail Aga is situated in a deep valley surrounded by towering mountains close to the Iranian border. The area saw many years of heavy fighting during the Iran/Iraq war, and was highly contaminated with landmines. Over the years MAG teams have achieved a great deal.
“Before we could not use any of our land,” Fikre continues. “But now we grow tomatoes, cucumber, peppers and tobacco on land that MAG has cleared. We are much safer now and we have food.”
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| 54 families displaced from Baghdad and Mosul are now living with relatives in Malabrwan village. 20 new houses have been built but conditions are difficult and over-crowded for the villagers. | MAG Community Liaison officers Zaid and Vadar have give MRE to the children. “It is important that these people get MRE,” explained Zaid. “When they eventually go home they will be at risk and many of them travel daily to Mosul where there is a problem with unexploded ordnance.” |
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| 12 year-old Adlin has already lost a friend: “Hadil picked up a bomb in Mosul and was killed,” he said. “I still go there to go to school to learn Arabic so it is important for me to know about these dangers. It is dangerous there but we can’t learn Arabic here.” | The dangers are explained to the children. They are shown pictures of dangerous items and they play games and sing songs incorporating important messages. Roleplay is also used to help reinforce the messages. |
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