But it can still ruin lives.
In the Bara Banday Village of Mingora, Swat Valley, about two years ago, a group of children found an IED in a nearby field and brought it home, assuming it was a toy.
“There was this military operation in Koza Banda village. After the forces were gone, a number (of villagers) went … to see what happened,” said Bakht Rehman, who lost four family members in the ensuing IED blast during Ramadan. “Our children also went there and brought a strange thing to my uncle’s home. My uncle told them to throw it away as it might be harmful. But even he failed to identify it as something that would kill our family members.”
Militants have been criticised for using IEDs primarily because they kill indiscriminately.
In areas like the Swat Valley in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which has little public advocacy and limited awareness of IEDS, innocent civilians often die.
Tracking children’s deaths is difficult
No agency in Pakistan tracks the number of civilian or child deaths due to IEDs, but Dr. Jawad Ali at the Directorate of Health FATA said about 50 children die of IEDs in all seven tribal agencies every year.
Since 2005, Lady Reading Hospital has treated more than 12,000 people from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, said Shiraz Qayyum Afridi, director of the Accident and Emergency Department at the Peshawar hospital.
About 147 attacks have killed 1,023 people, he said. Of these 523, including 233 children, were killed by IEDs, he said.
The Hayatabad Medical Complex treated 1,044 victims of bomb blasts. Of those, 398 died, including 118 children. The majority of these children were hit by IEDs in Khyber Agency, Dr. Kashif Ali of the Accident and Emergency Department said.
IEDs are not easy to identify
Some IEDs are designed to be difficult to identify, Rehman said.
“My father who used to work in Dubai, UAE, was home on vacation,” Rehman recalled. “He asked the children to show (what they had brought home) to him. He started trying to figure out what it was. As he didn’t know what it was, unknowingly he might have pulled some wire or pen that triggered the IED blast, killing my father and the children on the spot.”
Such inhumane warfare tactics are causing widespread revulsion toward the militants, he said.
“We all are in a state of shock. There is no end to my mother’s tears,” Rehman said. “Imagine, my sister was about 9, one brother was about 11 and the other was 15. Our family is in terrible shape because of this tragedy caused by an IED.”
Education and awareness of IEDs
Most residents of the conflict zone have limited access to information about weapons and unexploded ordnance.
The Af-Pak region has been in turmoil for the past decade, and educating the general public about how to avoid IEDs is often overlooked.
The Sustainable Peace and Development Organisation (SPADO), an Islamabad-based non-governmental organisation in collaboration with the European Union, launched a project in 2010 to educate inhabitants of the Swat Valley and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on how to avoid and handle IEDs and unexploded ordnance.
“People from conflict zones are exposed to the threat of being injured or killed while handling unexploded improvised explosive devices, mines, bombs or other explosive material,” Muhammad Zaheer Khan, national co-ordinator for mine risk education of SPADO, told Central Asia Online.
“We educated them on different types of unexploded ordnances and guided them not to touch or collect such unexploded things or material,” Khan said. “If they see anything like that, it should be reported to local police or other law enforcement agency.”
Unexploded ordnance kills civilians
Militants ruthlessly use IEDs without regard for children, women and the elderly. Mishandling of IEDs and other unexploded materials has killed or injured hundreds.
“It’s vital that people from conflict zones should be educated on their risky behaviour of handling IEDs and other unexploded objects,” Khan said. “There is a dire need for further advocacy and education, which can help save precious lives.” Rehman said no one in his family was aware the children had brought home an IED.
“Nobody could identify it or got to know what it was,” Rehman said. “Had anyone in the family had any clue that it was an IED, we would have been saved from such destruction.”
Programmes like the one SPADO is offering are good, he said, adding more education of the public is essential.
“There is a need for educating common people from the conflict zone to identify IEDs if they come across one as our children did,” he said. “It can save lives.”
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