ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - An exploding landmine injured a teenaged boy in the mountains of northern Erbil province on Friday, a local official said. A 15-year-old shepherd stepped on a mine believed to be planted during the Iraq-Iran war in the eighties, Rabar Anwar, spokesperson for the Mine Action Agency’s Erbil branch, told Rudaw. The teen was seriously injured. The incident took place in the Bradost area of the Soran administration, where six people have been victims of landmines so far this year. Two of them died and the rest suffered major injuries, according to data obtained by Rudaw. In the several past decades, 46 people from 14 villages in the Soran district have fallen victim to landmines, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Mine Action Agency confirmed to Rudaw English in 2021. There are tens of millions of unexploded landmines and ordinances littered across the Kurdistan Region’s borders with Iran. These remnants date back more than three decades to the devastating Iran-Iraq war of 1980 to 1988. Over 13,000 mine victims have been recorded since the 1990s, according to the mine agency.
