500kg Bomb Found and Destroyed in Takhar as War Remnants Raise Mine Fears
The Taliban police command in Afghanistan’s Takhar province said a 500-kilogram bomb left over from past wars had been discovered in the village of Nawabad Barjah in Bangi district.
Nakibullah Masroor, a Taliban police spokesman in Takhar, said the heavy bomb was taken by the police engineering team to an area far from residential homes in Ghozoul Dara and was then detonated in a controlled explosion under security precautions.
Afghanistan, after years of war and conflict, is one of the most heavily contaminated countries in the world with landmines and unexploded ordnance, posing a major threat to people’s lives and security, especially children.
Earlier, similar cases of the discovery and destruction of 500-kilogram bombs had also been reported in Samangan, Kabul and Herat provinces, indicating the continued threat of explosions in different parts of the country.
Despite the Taliban administration’s limited efforts to clear contaminated areas, international agencies such as UNICEF have warned that millions of people in Afghanistan, especially children, remain at direct risk from landmines.
The United Nations says around 50 people in the country are killed or injured every month, 80 percent of them children, a worrying issue for Afghan society.
