Old artillery shell kills two, wounds others in Halabja

Shafaq News- Halabja

Two people were killed and others injured on Monday when an old artillery shell exploded near Kani Maran village in Iraq’s Halabja province, police and health officials said.

Halabja Police spokesperson Akam Qutb Al-Din said the shell detonated while it was being handled. Farhan Hama Khan, spokesperson for Halabja’s General Directorate of Health, told Shafaq News that no final casualty figure was immediately available.

Halabja and other mountainous and border areas of the Kurdistan Region remain contaminated by mines and unexploded ordnance left by decades of conflict, including the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War. In June, an independent deminer removed more than 27 landmines, grenades, and artillery shells from Awesar village near the Iranian border.

Across Iraq, more than 2,700 square kilometers remained contaminated by explosive ordnance as of April 2025, according to the United Nations Mine Action Service and UNICEF.

Read more: Discover Iraq: Halabja- Where land, memory, and resilience intertwine