Briefing reporters late last month, UN Mine Action Service officers said the war has already left behind around 37 million tonnes of debris, and it could take 14 years to make Gaza safe from unexploded bombs.
A UN team inspects an unexploded bomb lying on a main road in Khan Younis, Gaza.
Going home danger
Although many Gazans who have been uprooted several times by almost seven months of war are well aware today of the need to stick to relatively safe evacuation corridors to protect themselves, it’s when the hostilities finally end – and they go home to start clearing their land – that the dangers will become apparent.
Speaking from Gaza to UN News, Mr. McCabe noted that displaced Gazans “coming from the north” away from heavy fighting early in the war and Khan Younis further south more recently, “do tend to stay tightly packed and stay to the proven route” for safety.
The parents, grandparents do tend to keep the children close to them”, reducing the risk of youngsters walking off into potentially dangerous territory, he added.
Safety in numbers
“Bear in mind that they’re normally marshalled as well by troops, watching them from both sides of the corridor, so they tend to stay together and not wander off, because obviously if they start wandering off again, it becomes dangerous,” the UNMAS official said.
“So, they do tend to keep together, but that doesn’t rule out that an accident could very well happen.”
To help protect them in the meantime, the UN agency has already stepped up its awareness-raising campaigns among camps for internally displaced people, or IDPs.
Don’t go near it…Tell someone in charge and then get it reported, and then we can mark it and put a safe area around it
“You know, we tell them if you see anything avoid it, ‘Don’t go near it…Tell someone in charge and then get it reported, and then we can mark it and put a safe area around it.’ There are mitigation measures in place and these messages have been getting out to the IDP camps,” Mr. McCabe continued.
Deadly asbestos risk
The UNMAS official noted that in addition to the unknown amounts of unexploded weapons in Gaza today, the rubble left by the hostilities likely contains “hundreds of thousands of tonnes of asbestos”.
This serious health threat should also be identified and cleared as a priority, the UNMAS official insisted.