What is happening in Iraq?
Over 20 years on from the start of the Iraq war, landmines and unexploded bombs have left a deadly legacy. Due to that and other conflicts, Iraq is considered one of the world’s most landmine-affected countries.
Since 2014, the ISIS occupation forced millions of people across Iraq to abandon their homes and flee in a desperate attempt to survive. Landmines have devastated lives. For most, ‘home’ became the various camps set up for people displaced by conflict, but many of these are now set to close. People are being forced to return to homes surrounded by landmines and unexploded bombs.
You can help make them safe. A gift of £40 could help fund a fully trained and equipped deminer to clear land in areas formerly held by ISIS and make it safe to start rebuilding to begin.
Meet Sidra
Sidra is one of the countless children in Iraq who have been affected by conflict. Huge numbers of landmines are hidden in the fields around her village. Her family risk setting off a deadly explosion whenever they farm the land.
Sidra attends school in the city during the week, but at the weekends she is at home helping tend to her family’s livestock – surrounded by minefields. To make a dangerous situation even more terrifying, the area is on a slope, so landmines can shift and fall at any time.
Everyday 15 people are killed or injured by landmines and unexploded bombs across the world. More has to be done to stop this threat. We need to come together and take action.
Our deminers risk their lives to find and destroy landmines and unexploded bombs so that they can remove them and stop further casualties. They are driven by a determination to give their own communities - their friends and family - back a life of safety, sometimes decades after the conflict ended.
Continued conflict across the world means our deminers are more vital than ever.
Even when the fighting ends, landmines and unexploded bombs remain — causing death, injury, and suffering for decades to come.
It is not fair and it is not right that families will be trapped in fear long after conflict ends.
No one should live with the legacy of war.
