In Sudan, where toys are scarce in many communities, children will play with anything they can find: a rock... a stick... a landmine.
One such child is Mohammed Adam Hussein [circled above], now 14 years old, who was walking home from school in Hamdait in 2006 when he decided to take a new route.
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Due to its strategic location during the civil war that ravaged Sudan over the past decades, the village of Hamdait, in the Wad Elhliwa locality of Kassala state [Kassala town, the state capital, is marked on the map below], served as a military base.
Landmines were planted in the surrounding areas to defend the base and so, even after the war finished in 2005, the dangerous legacy of a minefield remained.
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Mohammed shows the scars from his injuries. Top: Mohammed and other community members in Kassala attend a MAG Mine Risk Education session. [Photos: MAG Sudan] |
Mohammed found a partially buried strange object close to the road and started to kick it. That’s when the explosion that he does not remember happened.
“I only remember kicking the item I found, and then I found myself in the hospital,” he says. “I suffered a lot, and I wish I knew that the object I was kicking was dangerous.”
Mohammed received severe injuries to his stomach and was taken to the local hospital where he was treated for six months, before three months’ further treatment in the town of Kassala.
So bad were his injuries, and so lengthy his recovery time, that Mohammed lost two years of school and now lags behind his peers.
On top of that, hospital bills meant the accident seriously affected the family budget and, as Mohammed still needs regular follow-up treatment, continues to do so.
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Kassala |
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MAG visited the village, to find out more about the problem there by talking with residents and to deliver Mine Risk Education (MRE). MRE helps minimise the risk for people living with a minefield in their community while they wait for the dangerous land to be cleared.
The people MAG Sudan's Community Liaison team talked to reported that, following MAG's visit, they now recognise the clues and warning signs, and avoid dangerous behaviour such as burning the land close to the minefield and tampering with the unknown items. They also said that they will share the knowledge they have learned with other people in the mosques.
“The people of Hamdait community appreciate the good job of Mine Risk Education done by MAG, which prevented us from having accidents and having to spend our money in the hospitals instead of buying food for our families,” said 50-year-old Hessin Elsmani, Mohammed’s great uncle.
- More on MAG's programme in Sudan
- More on Community Liaison
- More on Mine Risk Education
11 May 2010
MAG thanks the donors to its Sudan operations: Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for Development (AECID); Actiefonds Mijnen Ruimen (AMR); Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA); UK Department for International Development (DFID) / UKaid; Canada Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT); Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Guernsey Overseas Aid Commission; Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, US Department of State; Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement, US Department of State; United Nations. Click on Tags below for related articles.
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