At least 87 people were killed and 333 injured in incidents involving unexploded ordnance across Afghanistan over the past year, the Taliban-run disaster management authority (ANDMA) said on Wednesday.
The ANDMA said 193 incidents linked to unexploded bombs and mines were recorded nationwide during the period.
Mohammad Yousof Hamad, Taliban spokesman for the ANDMA, said the authority’s mine clearance coordination department, working with demining organisations, cleared 58 kilometres (36 miles) of land and discovered and neutralised 24,720 mines and unexploded devices.
Children accounted for 67.5% of the casualties, Hamad said, highlighting the disproportionate impact of explosive remnants of war on Afghanistan’s youngest residents.
He added that 155 demining teams are currently operating across the country and provided mine-risk awareness training to more than 2.1 million people over the past year.
Despite those efforts, about 106,000 square kilometres of land in Afghanistan remain contaminated with unexploded ordnance, according to ANDMA.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has said Afghanistan ranks third globally in casualties caused by unexploded ordnance, warning that remnants of decades of conflict continue to kill and injure civilians, particularly children.
