Explosive remnants of Iran-Iraq War still claiming lives and limbs

BANEH, Iran – On an evening walk in downtown Baneh, the scars of the eight-year war between Iraq and Iran are still all too visible. Every few steps you meet a local missing a limb or in some way disfigured by the explosive remnants still littering the landscape 32 years on. 

Baneh, home to 120,000 people, is considered a tourist and trade hub of Iranian Kurdistan. Despite its relative prosperity today, the city still bears the scars of the devastating 1980-88 war.

Wearing black glasses to hide the scars where his eyes should be, Mahdi Fardiyan says he lost his sight 29 years ago.

“When I was six years old, I lost my eyes and a hand due to a landmine in Baneh city center,” the 35-year-old told Rudaw at a special needs centre in Baneh. 

Fardiyan says coming to terms with losing his sight has empowered him to fight for others maimed by war and its explosive legacy.

‘Playing with bullets’

Anti-personnel mines are munitions designed to explode when in the presence, proximity, or in contact with a person. This includes improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which have the same victim-activated characteristics. Children are the most common victims.

Fardiyan recalls the day he found the device. 

“On December 9, 1990, a mine was triggered in my hands. I was playing with them on Darmanga Street, near the city center, while playing on the ground with bullets,” he said. 

“A shop nearby our house used to sell the debris of war, including some unexploded materials. Many children at the time used to play with bullets and other explosives.”

The blast destroyed Fardiyan’s eyes and ripped off his arm at the elbow. 



“I lost consciousness and was in coma for 20 days. Therefore I do not really remember everything like how it happened,” he said.

His family cared for him during his long recovery and tried to give him a normal childhood. 

“I had a resilient and dedicating family. They did not prevent me from going outdoors after what happened. Two of my sisters were always attending to me,” he said.

Fardiyan missed two years of school while undergoing painful surgeries, but has refused to let his injuries hold him back. Today he holds a master’s degree in sociology from Tehran University. 

“My master’s thesis is about the negative implications of the eight-year war between Iraq and Iran,” he said.

Fardiyan has also overcome his limitations to become an accomplished musician. He has even recorded an album. 

He is married with two sons, Zhiro, 9, and Harman, 5.

Since completing his studies, Fardiyan has dedicated his life to supporting others maimed by explosive remnants, becoming head of the People with Special Needs Organization in Baneh. 

“During the Iran-Iraq War, Baneh was bombed 93 times. Additionally, there have been abundant clashes between the Iranian Kurdish groups and the state in the Baneh region,” he said.

“Therefore, there are two to three thousand war amputees in Baneh. The mission of our organization is to support handicapped people, be they war amputees or others.”

The winter months can be especially deadly in these areas.

“Since Baneh is a mountainous area, during the winter season, rainfall uncovers them, washing them down to the towns and villages,” he said. “Therefore, the majority of landmine victims are [harmed] during springtime.”

A shortage of trained mine disposal experts means their removal has been slow, Fardiyan said.

More victims expected

And it’s not just the surrounding mountains which are saturated with explosive remnants. Fardiyan says even the public parks in Baneh itself are unsafe.

“Some other places including Garmaw village are riddled with landmines and the village has plenty of landmine amputees,” he said. 

“The government has not placed any signs to warn people of mines in public places. Many more victims are expected.”

Jabar Tahmasbi, head of the Rights Organization for Mine Affairs in Iranian Kurdistan, said Iran’s minefields are mostly concentrated in the Kurdish west of the country, including Sanadaj, Ilam, Kermanshah, and Khuzestan provinces.

Some of the blame rests with Iran’s security and border forces.

“The problem with mines is that Iranian security forces have left behind their bases planted with landmines,” Tahmasbi told Rudaw.

“And flooding unearths the mines, washing them away, and brings them to the villages, posing a grave danger to the lives of locals.” 

“Our organization raises awareness among villagers and people in the urban areas, teaching them how to avoid explosives,” he said.

“Unfortunately, since Iran is not a member of the Ottawa mine ban treaty, it does not receive any assistance from the UN for demining operations in the country,” he added.

The Ottawa Treaty, formally known as the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, aims to eliminate the weapon worldwide. To date, there are 164 state parties to the treaty.

In November 2019, states parties to the Treaty met in Norway where they established the Oslo Action Plan to clear landmine contaminated lands and destroy stockpiles of the weapon by 2025.

In a dangerous development, the Trump administration announced on January 31 that the US, which is not a signatory to the Ottawa Treaty but the single largest contributor to mine clearance efforts globally, would cancel the Obama administration’s policy of limiting the use of anti-personnel landmines on the Korean Peninsula because it would put American soldiers at a “severe disadvantage during a conflict against our adversaries”.

2,500 civilians killed, 6,000 wounded

Iran’s five provinces bordering with Iraq are still peppered with close to 16 million landmines left over from Iran-Iraq War, spanning the length of the 1,100 km border. Mines and unexploded ordinance maim and kill dozens of people every year on both sides. On January 24, a man and his three children were killed by a mine in Karkheh, Khuzestan Province. 

Iranian officials have acknowledged landmines are a lingering problem. However, according to an Atlantic Council report from August 2016, Iran continues to plant mines “as a means of combating smuggling and terrorism”.

Geographical conditions in the border region and the randomness with which they were scattered makes efforts to remove them all but futile.

“One of Iran’s major challenges in the landmine clean-up effort is the lack of maps showing where mines have been planted,” the report states. 

Iran’s minister of defense Amir Hatami said in November during the opening of an advanced demining training center in Tehran that 20 million mines and unexploded ordinance were left behind from the 1980s war. 

“More than 6,000 of our citizens have been wounded because of mines and unexploded ordinance and 2,500 have been killed,” Hatami said. “We are the second most contaminated country in terms of mines in the world [after Afghanistan]  and we are doing our utmost to clear the mine contaminated areas in our country.” 

Iran says it has defused millions of landmines planted by Iraqi forces during the war, launched by Iraq’s former dictator Saddam Hussein in 1980. 

The agonizing war of attrition killed more than a million people on both sides. 



Just like Iran, vast areas of Iraq and the Kurdistan Region are contaminated by mines and other explosive remnants. 

Besides IEDs and unexploded bombs left over from the recent war with the Isalmic State (ISIS), mines planted during Saddam’s Anfal campaign against the Kurds and by both sides during the Iran-Iraq War continue to takes lives and limbs.

Translation by Zhelwan Z. Wali, edited by Robert Edwards