Landmines and explosive remnants of war continue to claim lives and cause permanent disabilities across Yemen, even as a fragile truce holds.
According to a report by Al Jazeera, these hidden explosives have killed at least 339 children and injured 843 others since the April 2022 ceasefire.
In the Taiz governorate, 13-year-old Enaya Dastor lost her left leg after stepping on a mine in August 2023. She was tending to goats near her village, Jabal Habashy, when the blast occurred.
"People gathered around me after the blast, and I was taken to the hospital immediately. It was a horrible moment," Dastor told Al Jazeera.
Her family was forced to flee the village, which had previously served as a front line during the conflict. They now reside in the city of Taiz.
The cost of war
Save the Children found that nearly half of all child casualties related to the conflict are the result of landmines and unexploded ordnance.
In the first half of 2025 alone, 107 civilians were killed or injured. This figure includes five children who died while playing football on a dirt field in Taiz.
During the height of the fighting between 2014 and 2022, the casualties were even more widespread. A 2022 study by Yemeni human rights groups reported that 534 children and 177 women were killed by mines during that period.
Landmines and other explosives remain a persistent threat in areas that were once active battlefields. Dastor described the devices as "sleeping killers, waiting for the innocents to step on them or move them without caution."
She added that before the incident, she and other local children played in the pastures for hours, unaware of the lethal objects planted in the soil.
"I do not want to see another child harmed or hear another landmine explosion. I loathe walking on the soil under which mines were planted," Dastor said.
