DARAA
In the searing sun of a village in Daraa, Syria, Anja Mahameed kneels in the mud, holding one end of a measuring tape. The exercise is part of non-technical survey training for landmine disposal—work that appears simple at first sight but could mean the difference between life and death on the field.
Mahameed is among the many people in Daraa who have decided to take up this line of work following the overthrow of president Bashar al-Assad in December 2024. From the start of the revolution in 2011, Assad, with the support of Russia, had launched massive aerial warfare campaigns on his people to crush dissent. Today, large swathes of land have been polluted by unexploded ordnances (UXO) used primarily by his forces.
Though the 14-year civil war has ended, dangers lurk in the form of these UXO. According to a February 2025 report by the NGO Humanity and Inclusion (HI), up to 3,00,000 UXO may be littering various parts of the country.
“I saw a lot of people lose their legs, hands, eyes. And people lost their lives, too, because of war remnants,” says Mahameed. “Plus, there are places you can’t enter or use because they are polluted, so [many] people lost their houses, because you can’t use them.”
The HALO trust, an NGO that carries out extensive demining operations in Syria, is training 40 people here in Daraa, eight of them women. In 2016, Mahameed worked with HALO when Daraa was rebel-held, and even conducted mine disposals, but was forced to give up her work when Assad’s forces recaptured the area and shut them down. In the few years prior to December 2024, HALO’s operations were limited to the opposition-held governorate of Idlib.
The HALO website says that, from December 2024 to May this year, more than 1,020 adults and children were killed or injured by UXO. There are multiple organisations that conduct demining operations in Syria. HALO, the Syrian Civil Defence, and Mines Advisory Group are some of the key players in the field.
An emptied out shell used for training, with explosives on the side | Anagha Subhash Nair
Following the overthrow of Assad, HALO’s area of work expanded unprecedentedly, and they opened a new training centre in Daraa, widely considered as the cradle of the Syrian revolution.
In 2011, during the Arab Spring, a group of teenage boys spray painted the words “Your turn has come, doctor,” on the walls of a school in Daraa al-Balad, or Daraa old town, a clear reference to Assad, who was an ophthalmologist. The boys were arrested and tortured, and the event is seen by many as what sparked the decade-long war.
The only thing that demarcates Daraa al-Balad from Daraa al-Mahatta, which was Assad-held, is a large chasm. Daraa al-Mahatta is a town, complete with traffic, mosques, schools and the occasional restaurant. Its visual contrast with Daraa al-Balad is jarring. Dust envelops the skeletons of buildings, settling firmly into the bullet-ridden walls.
Disposal of an unexploded ordnance
We stop and step out of the car to see some Ottoman-era ruins and I hesitate to move forward, fearful that I would step on a mine. Our driver, Abu Yousef, reassures me and helps me tackle the mud slope to enter the centuries-old structures which have weathered both time and war. Later, we drive up to a vantage point from where we can see the town in its full destruction.
“Don’t get too close, there might be mines,” cautions Abu Yousef.
Mahameed’s training is in the courtyard of a villa that HALO has rented in Daraa, about a 15-minute drive from Daraa al-Balad. Inside, HALO posters are plastered over the walls. On the roof, an expert teaches trainees about how to identify and dispose of UXO. They use an emptied out shell as a sample for the trainees.
While demining, survey teams usually collect data about the polluted area, often using detectors to help find the mines. They conduct risk assessments, and then put together a plan to dispose of the item. Sometimes, the item is destroyed in situ, and in other cases, they are collected and disposed of en masse.
Downstairs, a group of adults sit on plastic chairs around a room. They are part of the explosive ordnance risk education (EORE) team, where they teach civilians and children how to react when they see unfamiliar objects in their environments. Often, HALO receives reports from civilians about potential UXO, prompting them to clear the area.
Among the students is Rama Abu Nabbout, who took up the task of working with HALO because of her own war experiences. The 24-year-old was displaced from her home during the war, and is unable to return after the toppling of Assad despite it seeming intact, because of a fear of UXO. She explains how it is disheartening to still be living in an unfamiliar place, despite the war having ended.
Nabbout believes that working in this field is a way for her to help her society—the very society that sometimes raises eyebrows at her unconventional choice to work with war remnants. Her eyes well up when she talks about her struggles as a woman, and later asks me whether I experience the same as a journalist.
“Sometimes my relatives and friends are like ‘What? A girl working in the field of landmines and war remnants?’” she says.
Nabbout explains that though she is in EORE training now, people around her sometimes worry that she would be tasked with other missions like landmine removal. Her parents are less traditional, but still worry about her safety.
“I’m like, if I’m not the one making the first move and doing it, who will? Even if they put me in [mine] removal, I dream of taking the training, making choices and going to the field.”
In the northern part of the country, Hiba Al Hassan is doing exactly that. She has been working in demining with HALO for over six months. Dressed in a grey and black niqab and abaya, she helps her colleagues set up a device to perform a circuit continuity check before carrying out the detonation. She motions with routine hand gestures to communicate with those on the other end of the field.
“I feel every day like I’m doing something for my village, my country. It’s really nice, an indescribable feeling, honestly,” she says.
Before the disposal, the team conducts a brief, where they go over points such as the nearest hospital and the safe areas on the field. As they finish, Hassan heads to her designated spot for the day, to set up an emergency medical point in case of any accidents during the disposal. Silence follows, then a thunderous explosion. The war remnant has been blown up into hundreds of fragments.
The women who work in this field have their own reasons for picking it. In Nabbout’s case, it is driven by her personal experiences. For Mahameed, it was the novelty of the job, and the feeling that it was a way for her to help people more.
“I like to switch things up, to move from job to job for the better,” Mahameed says. “My old job was just in the office, and I don’t like office jobs.”
Unlike Syria, India is not at high risk of UXO, but following the latest round of conflict with Pakistan, contamination has risen at the Line of Control. The area had already been facing high threat levels after previous cross-border fighting. After the cessation of hostilities in May 2025, the Indian Army announced that it was working on safe disposal of UXO and clearing of the areas.
But in the aftermath of war, it is almost always the innocent who pay the price. Thirty-year-old Khalas Saleh’s story is one of indescribable euphoria followed by the pall of injury. In early December, Saleh heard that the Assad regime had been driven out of his hometown, and set off to see the land he had left behind. On his way back, he stopped at the side of the road and when he got off his bike, he stepped on a mine. Bleeding and in pain, he administered first aid to himself.
“I tied my leg tightly [with my belt] and went directly to the hospital,” he explains.
Saleh is receiving physiotherapy and rehabilitation at Aqrabat Hospital after his right leg was amputated below the knee. He approached the establishment—one of the sole specialised orthopaedic hospitals in the area in northern Syria—when his pain returned post-surgery.
Now, Saleh is hoping to be fitted with a prosthetic, so that he can return to his life. Before his accident, he used to be a heavy vehicle driver; a job he is keen to continue if he can, in a new Syria.
“I’m so happy to get an artificial limb, maybe in a month or two,” he says. “I just want to return to having a working leg and walking, and to live my life.”