Demining experts from around the world have been sharing their collective shock at the widespread and growing threat from unexploded ordnance, the new head of the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) said this week.

In conflict zones where new technologies are making landmines more dangerous, deminers must innovate at the same pace to avoid being left behind, a leading UN mines expert has told .

Theyretelling me, Never in my career have I ever seen so many conflicts, said Kazumi Ogawa, speakingat the close of aMine Action National Directors and UN advisersmeetingin Geneva.

Despite the clear need to continue demining work in the worlds conflict zones and those now at peace, for various reasons, the level of funding has gone down in terms of humanitarian assistance,Ms. Ogawa noted.

Gaza timebomb

In Gaza, for instance, a staggering 90 per cent of the people that are injured by explosive hazards from the Hamas-Israel war are civilians and of those, the majority of them are children, she stressed.

UNMAShas warned that between five and 10 per cent of all munitions fired in Gaza have not detonated. The result is that potentially lethal unexploded ordnance is now ingrained in the devastated enclave, the mine action service chief said.

We can gather the explosivehazardsand we cordon them off inGazaso they're blocked off, but we're not able to destroy themAnd so, they sit there in pilesthat children are expected to walk around.

She added: You have fathers that will go through the rubble to try to get home and find explosive devices and wont know what to do with it; you'll find children that are playing, right, and coming across these hazards.

UNMAS/Asso Sabahaddin

More landmines were laid in Syria during the nearly 14-year conflict. (file)

Lacking support

Despite such a massive threat, theres never enough support for demining and risk education, particularly today, amid a crisis in support for international agencies and bodies including the UN, and a spike in the number of conflicts.

The problem is, as budgets - national budgets - are diverted towards,defence, for example, and away from humanitarian assistance, whatwe're seeing is the effect of that on the ground, said Ms. Ogawa. So, in Afghanistan, for example,one child is killed every day.

The problem is no less shocking in Syria.

Where normally you would have maybe 300 people killed, through explosive hazards in one year in a particular mine-ridden country, in Syria, you have 200 people killed a week, the UNMAS Director said.

It'sunimaginable. And these are the kinds of things that that donor funding wouldgreatly helpus with: explosive ordnance risk education, victimassistance, the actual clearance, advocacy to larger parts of the humanitarian communityto ensure that these people stay safe.

In addition to the human cost of landmines and other unexploded remnants of war, the economic impact is a significantbrakeon development too.

UNOPS Afghanistan

Demining Agency for Afghanistan (DAFA) Explosive Ordnance Risk Education trainer equips children with life-saving knowledge on explosive risks, Kunar Province, Afghanistan.

Long-term care

If a child is maimed,you'reasking the family to take care of that child through adulthood, the community to make concessions for that child as he or she becomes a participant in the community. I mean,it'sjustit'snot just one person dying, right? Ms. Ogawa explained.

The UNMAS Director highlighted the positive work supported by the UN around the world to counter landmines and other unexploded weapons, which is helping communities and nations to rebuild.

In Colombia, where theres a legacy of antipersonnel mines and other explosive ordnance contamination from the decades-long civil war, an initiative from national transitional justice mechanism involves former fighters to help with the recovery and restoration of those communities, includingthrough demining and mine action, victim assistance, risk education, Ms. Ogawa said.

It's a way of incorporating - instead of penalizing the ex-combatants by putting them in jail, it's really incorporating them to be a part of the community.

If you talk to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace in Colombia,it'ssuper exciting whatthey'redoing.

Convention boosts safety and security

The 1997 international treaty to eradicate landmines known officially asthe Anti-Personnel Landmines Conventionhas proved effective at prohibiting antipersonnel landmines but in 2025 and early 2026, several European nationsinitiatedor completed the process of withdrawing from it.

The new UNMAS Director stressed the value of the Treaty and its relevance to everyone, everywhere:

Let'sremember thatwe'rehere not just for adherence to international conventions for the sake of adherence for us to be able to say, Oh, here's one more country.It'sso that it then trickles down and creates the conditions for people to live in safety and security.