Mines
For 26-year-old Kazem Mohammed Al-Affar, his dream was to protect his family from the conflict in his area and provide them with a safer life. But that dream was shattered in an instant when he stepped on a stone concealing a landmine.
The force of the explosion knocked him unconscious. He regained consciousness in a hospital, surrounded by doctors. He tried to move his limbs and sit upright, only to face a devastating reality: he had not only lost consciousness — he had lost both of his legs.
Kazem later learned that he had entered a minefield planted by an extremist group in an area inhabited by civilians, putting both people and animals at risk.
Kazem recalls:
“Days passed as I lay in the hospital bed, looking at my injured legs in despair, day after day. I tried to resist my disability, hoping that somehow my legs might recover or that something might change. At that moment, I felt a profound sense of helplessness and overwhelming despair.”
He continues:
“I tried to sit on a chair nearby, as if I were not injured. I had heard stories of people who had lost limbs because of landmines and explosive remnants of war, or whose lives had been permanently changed by them. I listened closely to a man sitting nearby as he described landmines in the harshest terms. I brought one leg closer to the other, but I realized that they were no longer the way I remembered them. The feeling of loss almost overwhelmed me.”
Today, Kazem is calling for landmines to be cleared from his city, so that others do not have to face the fate he experienced and families can return to their lives without fearing a hidden danger beneath their feet.
Kazem Is Not the Only Victim
The landmines did not shatter Kazem’s dream of walking again alone. Many innocent civilians across Syria — including women, children, and older people — have faced a similar fate, becoming victims of explosive remnants of war that continue to threaten lives long after the fighting has stopped.