Latest news on our demining activities, victim assistance and mine and explosive remnants of war education programmes around the world.
In August, Iraqi government COVID-19 restrictions on NGOs began to lift and mine action organisations were allowed to start back to work with a 25% capacity. FSD mobilised two full teams in Kudila village, Makhmour District, Nineweh Province; this included refresher...
Since 2012, the Swiss Foundation for Mine Action (FSD) has been hard at work in Afghanistan clearing priority minefields, clearing mines from combat areas and conducting non-technical investigations into suspected minefields. Darwaz-e Bala, a remote region in...
For the past four years, FSD has worked at clearing mines from areas recently liberated from ISIS in central and northern Iraq. Most of the beneficiaries targeted by the program base their entire income on agricultural activities, which have stopped due to the ISIS...
Throughout its time in Afghanistan, FSD’s aim has been to identify and eliminate the risks posed by explosive contamination which affects surrounding communities; and ultimately to contribute to more prosperous economic and social develop- ment in the cross-border...
As part of a major charity operation, the e-commerce community company QoQa raised 60,000 Swiss francs for FSD. This amount was dedicated to the decontamination of the Iraqi village of Nasr, located southeast of Mosul. Occupied between 2014 and 2016 by ISIS, it was...
Mine clearance is certainly not a trivial business. But that doesn't mean it is a daredevil job. Each step of the work is carefully planned, carried out and recorded using tried and tested routines. As a zero risk environment does not exist, risk must be minimized,...
The isolated province of Badakhshan, located in the far north-east of Afghanistan, is still littered with anti-personnel mines left by Soviet troops before their withdrawal from the country in 1989. That is where we met Rahmi Ali, who lost his leg in an explosion 25...
At FSD Iraq, nearly nine out of 10 employees are recruited and trained locally. Most knew nothing about mine clearance and had a whole different life prior to joining our teams. Some were teachers, farmers or housewives. Before finding themselves in the middle of a...
