It goes without saying that 2026 is proving to be yet another challenging year so far. Conflicts around the world continue to escalate and civilians continue to pay the highest price. 

Across the Middle East, the use of explosive weapons in populated areas is having an indiscriminate impact on the lives of women, girls, boys and men. Weapons such as artillery shells, aerial bombs and rockets are designed to produce powerful blast waves and fragmentation across a wide area. With 90% of casualties from these weapons being civilians, the resulting trauma is unacceptable.

The continued violence against civilians we are witnessing is completely inexcusable. While MAG continues to urge world leaders to advocate for an end to these atrocities, we also remain committed to doing all we can on the ground to protect innocent lives. I have just returned from Syria. The situation there is a landmine emergency, with casualties now the highest in the world. MAG is expanding operations in a much-needed response to urgently save lives. 

At our new training base in Hama, in the west of the country, I spent time with our new deminers who are preparing for the day they will take their first steps in a minefield.

One of them, a 35-year-old woman named Siba, told me she became a deminer because both her brother and her father lost their lives to landmines during the war. She said: “I have hope for the future for the first time in so many years.” 

During a lunchtime break in their training, the trainees gathered around a table under the shade, drank sweet black tea and shared their food, talking and laughing as friends and colleagues do.

Another trainee, Monze, a father of three, said his family had been displaced many times during the war. He said: “My family is safe and now I want to make sure other families are safe as well. This is why we do this dangerous work.”

Monze and his colleagues are all local people, motivated by the humanitarian crisis that has seen at least 2,500 children, women and men, killed and injured by the end of the Syrian civil war just 18 months ago.

We are only able to train these new deminers, along with the medics and community specialists who deliver lifesaving risk education programmes, thanks to your support. That support is creating safer communities, protecting children, and helping people return to everyday life after years of suffering.

This work is not just about restoring safe land, it is also about restoring confidence and about restoring hope for a new future.

It is only thanks to your donations that we are able to do this. So, from the deminers of Hama, I say thank you.

Darren Cormack

MAG Chief Executive

If you had to leave your home immediately, what would you pick up? Where would you go?

In many conflicts today, families are forced to make these impossible decisions in seconds: whether to flee, where to shelter, what to carry, how to protect children, and how to return home safely when violence pauses.

This is where MAG’s conflict preparedness and protection work, a form of risk education, becomes life-saving.

Modern conflict is increasingly fought in populated areas. Homes, schools, hospitals and roads are becoming frontlines, leaving civilians exposed to constant danger.

At the same time, humanitarian access is often limited or impossible.

Through practical, tailored guidance, MAG helps civilians understand how to reduce risk during attacks. From recognising explosive dangers to preparing emergency supplies, identifying safer shelter locations, or understanding how to evacuate safely. These simple actions are vital when faced with impossible choices.

In Lebanon, even while conflict continues, we have adapted rapidly to protect civilians where we can. When hostilities forced demining operations to be suspended in some of the hardest-hit areas, our teams quickly shifted focus toward helping displaced families understand how to recognise danger and stay safe.

As of 6 May 2026, thanks to supporters like you, MAG has:

• Distributed more than 225,000 lifesaving safety materials, helping families understand how to recognise explosive dangers, prepare for attacks, and make safer decisions.
• Reached over 100 shelters across 15 districts, providing displaced communities with vital safety information
  
• Delivered face-to-face risk education sessions to nearly 15,000 people
• Reached more than 6.5 million people through digital risk education campaigns

When temporary ceasefires in April 2026 allowed families to begin returning home, MAG teams deployed quickly along key access routes and into southern villages, providing urgent guidance before people re-entered potentially contaminated areas.

MAG remain ready for what comes next. Demining teams have continued training and preparing for rapid deployment so that, when conditions allow, emergency clearance and explosive ordnance disposal can begin immediately.

Thanks to you, MAG remains prepared to respond quickly when violence escalates, reaching civilians with lifesaving information. Even where conflict is ongoing, MAG prepares communities for safer recovery when the fighting stops.

Your impact, decades later

Long after conflict has ended and headlines have faded, your support means MAG is still there, protecting families from deadly remnants of war and helping communities rebuild their lives safely, decades later. 

Sok Nith, 31, was harvesting cashews on his farm in Lorm Chas Village, Ratanakiri province, when something buried in the soil caught his eye. He walked closer and immediately knew what it was: a mortar. 

His first thought was not for himself. It was for the children. He explained, “In the past, children in the village have picked up explosive items to sell as scrap metal.” 

Nith has two children, a 13-year-old son and a six-year-old daughter, who sometimes accompany him to work on the cashew plantation. “I am worried when my children come with me. If they ever find anything, they may play with it.” 

Because Nith had attended a MAG risk education session in the village, he knew to call MAG’s hotline and report the mortar. 

When the team of MAG deminers arrived, Nith guided them on foot to his farm. There, he pointed out the mortar, nestled against a tree and barely visible in the soil, a deadly relic of a conflict from over 40 years ago. 

After identifying the item, the team prepared the site. They cordoned off the surrounding area, prevented villagers from passing through, and broadcast a warning message on a megaphone. The mortar was then safely destroyed in a controlled demolition.

After the demolition, Nith felt a renewed sense of confidence in his land: “I am happy and will run the tractor to plough. The tractor driver will feel more confident as well. I will be able to grow more if the land is properly ploughed. No more fear.”

This is the lasting power of your support. MAG is able to continue showing up for families like Nith’s, removing deadly threats, and saving lives decades later.

Nith remembers his own first encounter with explosives as a child, when he came across items while searching for food in another village. “I was scared when I saw it and ran home to tell my parents.”

Now, as a parent, he does what he can to make the land safe for his children and community: “I will call MAG if I ever find anything again. I don’t want any accidents to happen in the village or for any children to find anything. I don’t want anything to happen to the community.”