A child playing outdoors was killed after a land mine from the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war was set off in Sardasht, a town in the northwestern Iranian province of West Azarbaijan on Tuesday (Sep 6).
“The eight-year-old Mohammad Eliasi was playing with his two friends when they found a mine and started tinkering around with it,” deputy governor Mir Ashkan Mahdavi, told IRNA.
The other two boys were severely injured. Soil erosion and rainfall are thought to have moved the mine to the area from border regions, Mahdavi noted. The eight-year-long war military conflict ended three decades ago and killed a million people on both sides. But the war continues to take a toll on Iranians in the form of the mine explosions. The latest in Sardasht was the second of its kind since the beginning of the Iranian calendar year in March 20.
