Somali Bomb Disposal Experts Risk Their Lives to Save Others

ADF STAFF

Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for an August 21 suicide bomb attack that killed 10 people, including seven security officers and two civilians, at a security checkpoint in Mogadishu.

In another August attack, al-Shabaab used a car bomb to blow up a Mogadishu café, killing five people and injuring several others who were watching the Euro 2024 soccer finals.

Such attacks, as well as the ongoing threat from an estimated 1 million mines and other unexploded ordnance left over from past conflicts, has civilians living in constant fear. Between March and April, Somali civilians accounted for 56% of all casualties involving improvised explosive devices in the country, according to the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS).

Somali Police Officer Mohamed Ahmed is an Explosive Ordnance Unit member tasked with risking his life to save others from the deadly remnants of war. On a recent weekday, Ahmed wore a bulky protective suit and helmet as he moved cautiously toward an area where explosives wired to a mobile phone were planted. He was participating in a training exercise, but acknowledged that overcoming everyday fear is part of his job.

“We fear and feel like we are risking our lives,” Ahmed told Reuters. “But we work carefully together and consider that we’re saving the lives of our citizens.”

Hussain Ahmed is the unit’s dog trainer. Known as Explosive Detection Dogs, these canines are trained to sniff out the explosives at government facilities, airports and security checkpoints. He said he often faces stigma over his work because some consider dogs to be unclean.

“If they say we shall not shake hands or greet you, we are indifferent, without a grudge,” he told Reuters. “Yes, there is impurity from dogs, but dogs prevent explosions that would kill thousands of Somalis, so they have their benefits.”

According to UNMAS, more than 1,700 people across Somalia have been killed by mines and unexploded ordinance. Eradicating the threat is as complicated as it is dangerous.

When fighting stops and civilians return, there are no detailed records of where minefields may be, former UNMAS head Elena Rice-Howell said in a U.N. video.

“It takes somebody to start a systematic process, going across the country and talking to communities, talking to people who live there and asking if they know of minefields, if they know of any bombs left behind, if there have been any accidents, has anyone been hurt?” Rice-Howell said.

UNMAS has led ongoing efforts to address the threat since 2009. Recently, UNMAS helped train more than 1,200 Somali troops and facilitated the movement of more than 50 African Union Training Mission in Somalia convoys in March and April. It also identified and cleared 18 locations contaminated by unexploded ordnance, and educated more than 6,000 people, 66% of whom were children, about the risks posed by unexploded ordnance, according to the U.N.

One young Somali boy told UNMAS representatives about an event that altered his life several years ago. He sat with a crutch balanced between his left leg and the arm of a plastic chair. His body clenched and his face tightened as he spoke.

“They were standing there with something. Then, my friends said to me, ‘We have found a landmine,’” the boy told UNMAS.

He paused, clutched the arm of a woman sitting nearby and gathered himself.

“My friends were playing with the landmine when it exploded,” he said. “All the other children died, and I lost my leg.”