Bamiyan province has been declared completely cleared of mines and unexploded ordnance after 36 years of demining work, the Taliban-run Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority said on Thursday, marking a significant milestone in efforts to address decades of explosive contamination in the country.
ANDMA said nearly 85 million square meters of contaminated land in the central province had been cleared between 1990 and 2026. The areas had been contaminated by anti-personnel and anti-vehicle mines, explosive remnants of war and munitions associated with military training.
An additional 296,765 square meters of land was surveyed and removed from the country’s mine-action database after teams determined that it did not contain mines or unexploded ordnance, according to the authority.
The clearance operations uncovered and destroyed 4,149 anti-personnel mines, 55 anti-vehicle mines and 50,581 items of unexploded ordnance, ANDMA said. Teams also destroyed 11,853 smaller explosive devices or munitions and 54 cluster munitions or unexploded cluster submunitions, it added.
The announcement follows decades of mine-clearance work in Bamiyan, a province that, like many parts of Afghanistan, was contaminated by explosives left by successive periods of conflict.
The human cost of that contamination has been significant. ANDMA said 262 incidents involving mines and unexploded ordnance were recorded in Bamiyan over the same period, leaving 330 people killed or injured.
The authority said children accounted for the majority of the casualties, though it did not provide a breakdown of deaths and injuries or specify how many of the victims were children.
ANDMA credited the country’s Mine Action Coordination Directorate, technical teams and partner organizations with contributing to the clearance effort.
The authority said mine-action teams had worked for 36 consecutive years to reach the point where Bamiyan could be declared cleared of known mine and unexploded-ordnance contamination.
Afghanistan remains heavily affected by explosive remnants of decades of war. Mines and unexploded munitions pose particular risks to civilians when contaminated land is used for farming, housing, travel or other daily activities.
ANDMA said it plans to accelerate clearance operations elsewhere in Afghanistan and aims to declare additional provinces free of known mine and unexploded-ordnance contamination.
The authority said clearing contaminated land would not only reduce the threat to civilians but also allow previously hazardous areas to be returned to productive use.
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