How landmines prevent Iraq's displaced people from returning home

With several million pieces of mines and explosives lying under the rubble and soil across Iraq, many internally displaced people prefer living in camps to returning home.

“It happened to one of my uncles two years ago. As a shepherd, he used to take his flock out in the field. One day, he stepped on a landmine that was hidden under the soil. As a result, he was left severely disabled.”

This is only one of the stories that Leyla Murad, a 22-year-old Iraqi woman, can recount about landmines destroying people’s lives. “I have a dozen of them; stories of adults, children and animals shredded into pieces by mines,” she told DW. Originally from Sinjar, a region in northwest Iraq, Murad and her family have been living in the Essian camp for internally displaced people In Ninewa province for eight years. In August 2014, as the “Islamic State” (IS) was rapidly advancing in Sinjar, they left everything behind and ran for their lives.