ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Nine civilians were injured on Sunday, some critically, when a landmine - reportedly left behind by remnants of the ousted Bashar al-Assad regime - exploded in Syria’s west-central Hama province, according to Syria’s national news agency.
The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported that the victims, described as workers, were “traveling in a vehicle near the village of al-Jubbayn in northern Hama countryside when the landmine detonated beneath them.”
The injured were transported to nearby hospitals in Hama "to receive urgent medical care" and "specialized treatment," SANA quoted Khaled al-Sama’il, head of the Ambulance and Emergency Department in Hama, as saying.
Sama’il noted that medical teams were "on full alert” in local hospitals, “monitoring the health status of the injured and providing everything necessary to ensure their stable condition."
According to SANA, seven of the casualties required “comprehensive treatment.”
The state news agency also noted that “the remnants of the defunct [Assad] regime’s war materials continue to pose a threat to the lives of citizens in the province’s countryside and other Syrian regions.”
Days prior, on Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that “five children - all under 15 - sustained serious injuries in the explosion of an old landmine in Khalsah village, which is controlled by the Damascus government,” in the southern countryside of Syria’s northern Aleppo province.
The UK-based war monitor - which relies on a network of local sources - added that the children “were transferred to Aleppo University Hospital due to their critical conditions.”
Underscoring the persistent threat posed by war remnants across Syria, SOHR noted that since the early December ouster of the Assad regime, it has documented “the death of 634 civilians - including 178 children and 42 women - and the injury of 699 others - including 313 children and 22 women - by explosions of war remnants.”
The war monitor’s data further notes that the most severe human toll has been documented in areas under the control of the Damascus government.