Kurdistan’s Duhok destroys 600+ landmines n 2026
Shafaq News- Duhok
Authorities in Duhok destroyed 608 landmines and explosive remnants of war collected across the province in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, since the start of 2026, an official said on Thursday.
Riker Besfki, media officer at Duhok’s Directorate of Mine
Affairs, told Shafaq News that a large portion of the materials had been buried
underground, with recent heavy rainfall exposing them in several areas, adding
that the disposal operation was carried out as part of routine campaigns by the
General Directorate of Mine Affairs.
On January 8, 2026, the authority reported that landmine incidents across the region in 2025 killed or injured 29 people, with many of the devices dating back to mines the former Iraqi army planted during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
Iraq is considered one of the most heavily contaminated countries in the world with landmines and unexploded ordnance, according to local and international reports, posing ongoing threats to civilians and causing fatalities and permanent injuries decades after successive conflicts.
Read more: Floods unearth Iraq’s hidden mines, reviving a wartime threat
