Mine clearance targets 120K m2 in Kurdistan’s Duhok

Shafaq News- Duhok

Two mine-clearance teams are working to clear about 120,000 square meters of land in Duhok province in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, the Mine Affairs Department’s media officer told Shafaq News on Thursday.

Riker Besfki said the teams have so far cleared about 20,000 square meters in the Bamarni subdistrict of Amedi and found and defused nine BLU-63 bomblets and an RPG round. Clearance operations remain underway.

“The area is among the most heavily contaminated by mines, posing a serious threat to residents, particularly villagers, farmers, and herders who depend on the land for their livelihoods.” Mines and other remnants of war have prevented residents from using large areas for agriculture and grazing for years, according to Besfki.

Earlier this month, he told Shafaq News that a worker sustained injuries after an unexploded ordnance dating back to the 1980s detonated at a quarry in Duhok. Since the start of 2026, Duhok authorities have destroyed more than 608 landmines and explosive remnants of war, including buried explosives exposed by heavy rainfall.

Read more: Floods unearth Iraq’s hidden mines, reviving a wartime threat