ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A 12-year-old boy lost an eye following the explosion of a Baath-era mortar shell in the Koya district of Erbil, an official told Rudaw on Saturday. Sherwan Jalal, deputy head of the Koya health directorate, told Rudaw that the mortar shell explosion occurred near a base of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), after the boy handled it. According to Jalal, the boy lost an eye and sustained injuries to his hands and feet. He was later transferred to a hospital in Erbil. According to information obtained by Rudaw, security forces scanned the area following the incident and neutralized another mortar shell. Iraq and the Kurdistan Region suffer from large numbers of landmines that remain scattered across the country from the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, the 1991 Gulf War, the 2003 invasion by the United States-led coalition, and the occupation by the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014. The mines continue to claim lives and leave people with life-long injuries. Over 30,000 people have been killed and left injured in Iraq since they began de-mining in 2003, Mustafa Hameed, media director at the Iraqi Directorate of Mine Action told Rudaw in December. A 2022 United Nations report stated that more than 519 children were killed or injured in Iraq over the previous five years from explosive ordnance, and that landmines and explosive remnants of war remain one of the leading threats to children in the country. The 1997 convention to ban landmines, known as the Ottawa Treaty, has been signed by 133 countries, including Iraq, which signed in 2007.
