More than 200 people, including women and children, have been killed in Syria in incidents involving war remnants in the three months since the fall of the Assad regime, as bomb disposal experts warn that “no area in Syria is safe”.
The number of casualties has risen as approximately 1.2 million people return to their former homes and lands after being displaced by the country’s brutal civil war.
Thousands of landmines and unexploded shells and munitions are scattered across the country in major cities and rural areas that witnessed military operations and bombings over 14 years.
As families return to their homes, accidental contact is killing hundreds. Children are particularly vulnerable to cluster munitions, sometimes mistaking them for toys. By last week, 640 people had been killed or injured, according to the world’s largest land mine charity, the Halo Trust. An earlier UN report had found that a third of the victims were children.
Read more here.
