日常の脅威、地雷・不発弾の犠牲になる子どもたち アフガニスタン

【ガズニ（アフガニスタン）ＡＦＰ＝時事】アフガニスタン東部ガズニ州。きのこ型の黒煙が立ち上る中、地雷の爆発で空いた穴の周りに子どもたちが集まっていた。アフガニスタンでは、１日おきに地雷のような残留爆発物で子どもが亡くなっている。（写真は、ガズニ州の村で地雷の爆発で空いた穴の周りに集まる子どもたち）
　イスラム主義組織タリバンは２０２１年、欧米の支援を受けた政府を打倒し復権。内乱は収束し、市民の姿が畑や学校、街中に戻ってきた。
　しかし、再び自由になった移動には、４０年にわたって相次いだ紛争の残骸による危険が伴う。
　国連（ＵＮ）の統計によると、昨年１月から今年４月の間だけでも、９００人近くが残留する地雷や不発弾によって死傷した。そのほとんどが子どもだった。
　国連アフガニスタン支援団（ＵＮＡＭＡ）地雷対策部門トップのニック・ポンド氏は、タリバン政権は「この国での地雷除去を強く支持し、可能な限り除去したがっている」という。
　アフガニスタンでの地雷除去は早くも１９８８年に始まった。しかし、数十年にわたる紛争で、国土はまたも地雷や不発弾で覆われてしまった。
　どれだけの地雷や不発弾が埋没しているかを予測することは「現時点ではほとんど不可能だ」と、ポンド氏はＡＦＰに語った。
　２０２３年１月以降、残留爆発物によって死傷した被害者の８２％は子どもで、その半数は遊んでいる最中に被害に遭った。
　地雷除去に取り組む英国の団体ヘイロートラストで爆発物処理責任者を務めるザブト・マヤル氏は、「資金不足」が大きな課題だと述べた。
　「地雷除去作業員は２０１１年ごろには１万５５００人いたが、今は３０００人だ」とポンド氏は語った。
　タリバン政権の正統性を認めない援助国が資金を引き揚げた一方で、世界の他の紛争地との資金の取り合いにもなっている。
　それでも、地雷除去は頼りにされている。
　北部バダフシャン州の集落にある小さな学校のモハマド・ハッサン校長は「校庭でさえ、地雷が残っていて危険だ」と語った。
　ポンド氏によると、地雷や不発弾などは、子どもにはおもちゃのように見えることがある。
　例えば、ソ連時代のバタフライ地雷「ＰＦＭ－１」は、翼が広がったような形状で「つい拾いたくなる」という。
　またこの貧しい国でスクラップ回収で生計を立てている人々にとって、金色をしている弾薬などは貴金属のように見える。
　「子どもたちはそれを見て、金かもしれないと思い、石やハンマーでたたいて先端部分を取り出そうとする」とポンド氏は語った。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】

〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2024/06/21-18:10）

The black mushroom cloud had barely faded in Ghazni province before kids clustered around the edge of the crater created by the mine, one of the devices that kills a child every other day in Afghanistan.
Afghans have been able to return to fields, schools and roads since the Taliban authorities ended their insurgency and ousted the Western-backed government in 2021.
But with new freedom of movement comes the danger of remnants left behind after 40 years of successive conflicts.
Nearly 900 people were killed or wounded by leftover munitions from January 2023 to April this year alone, most of them children, according to UN figures.
The anti-tank mine had been 100 metres from Qach Qala village, south of the provincial capital Ghazni, since the Soviet invasion from 1979 to 1989.
Deminers from the British organisation Halo Trust cautiously unearthed then detonated it, the explosion echoing three kilometres (nearly two miles) around.
But before it was set off, a Taliban member roared up to the deminers on his motorcycle.
Give me that mine! he demanded. I'll keep it safe at home. We can use it later when Afghanistan is occupied again.
The mine could not be so dangerous since it hadn't exploded all these years, he insisted, before being pushed back by the deminers.
The Taliban government is very supportive of demining in this country and wants to conduct clearance as far as it possibly can, said Nick Pond, head of the Mine Action Section of UNAMA, the United Nations mission in Afghanistan.
Demining began in Afghanistan as early as 1988 but, over decades of wars, the country has been re-infested with mines and ordnance.
It is almost impossible at the moment to predict what the scale of current contamination is, Pond told AFP.
Eighty-two percent of those killed or wounded by the remnant weapons since January 2023 were children, with half of cases involving children playing.
The village of Nokordak, nestled in a bucolic valley, lost two children in late April.
Surrounded by her small children, Shawoo told of how her 14-year-old son Javid was killed by unexploded ordnance.
He threw a stone at it. He hit it once, then a second time. The third time, the device exploded.
The boy died almost instantly.
The same explosion killed Javid's friend Sakhi Dad, also 14.
People said there were explosive ordnances around, but nothing like this had ever happened in the village before, said Sakhi Dad's 18-year-old brother, Mohammad Zakir, a lost look in his eyes.
No one had come to the village to warn the children of the danger.
- 'Lack of funds' -
In Patanaye, a village 50 kilometres away, 13-year-old Sayed showed his wounded hand and foot, still in bandages after the explosion in late April that killed his brother Taha, 11, as they were tending their sheep.
Three, four times I pulled it from his hands. I was shouting at him but he kicked me and hit it on a rock, Sayed told AFP.
These kinds of accidents are all too common, said their father Siraj Ahmad.
Tomorrow, someone else's son could be killed or handicapped for the rest of their life, he said.
Zabto Mayar, Halo's explosive ordnance disposal officer, said lack of funds was a major challenge their work.
So deminers work painstakingly plot by plot, depending on donations.
The mine action workforce was once 15,500 people around 2011. It is currently 3,000, Pond said.
Other global conflicts have pulled funding away, while Afghanistan has also seen donors pull back after the Taliban takeover, their government unrecognised by any other country.
- Mistaken for gold -
But Mohammad Hassan, headmaster of a small school in the Deh Qazi hamlet, is still counting on the deminers.
Even the schoolyard is dangerous for the children because it is not cleared of mines, he said.
We can't even plant trees here. If we dig, if we bring a tractor or machines to work here, it is really dangerous, he said.
Children in a classroom listened to a lesson aimed at preventing such accidents, the wall plastered with charts of mines or ordnance of all shapes and colours.
Six months ago on a walk with my friends, we saw a rocket and we immediately told the village elders and they informed the deminers, said 12-year-old Jamil Hasan.
Mines and ordnance can look like playthings to children, said Pond.
The Soviet-era butterfly mine (PFM-1), for example, with its winged shape, is very attractive to pick up, he said.
Children are also drawn to the beautiful and modern colours used in munitions, said Halo unit commander Sayed Hassan Mayar.
Some colours are also deceiving, such as golden-topped ammunition that can look like precious metal to people hunting for scrap to sell in the impoverished country.
The children usually think it might be gold, and they hit it with a stone or a hammer to take the top part, Pond said.
Danger from remnants of war is also omnipresent for deminers. Halo lost two of its number in early May.
Sometimes when I go defusing mines, I call my family and tell them I love them, just in case anything happens, Zabto Mayar said.