AUGUST 2019 InSTYLE 151“ WeWa n t t o
RebuildOurLives”W
e are helping people—clearing land for
the farmers, making the country safe for
people to come back. Most people are
badly affected by the war. Our family lost
our home. We had to run and lost every-
thing,” says Sabreen Abd Hassan, 24.
She is one of the 700-plus Iraqis employed by the Mines Advisory
Group (MAG), whose mission is to locate and destroy land mines,
cluster munitions, and unexploded bombs in war zones. With
operations on four continents, MAG recruits and trains local
people, particularly women, to work with special equipment and
mine-detecting dogs to clear their land. This teaches women a
marketable skill and enables them to enter the workforce and
earn a living. Says MAG’s chief executive, Jane Cocking, “Land
mines and unexploded bombs often affect the most marginalized
groups in a country recovering from conflict. When you recruit
people from those groups, they are able to play an integral part
in freeing their communities from the fear of land mines as well
as financially providing a better life for their families.”
Decades of conflict have made Iraq one of the worst land-mine-
affected countries in the world, and the problem only worsened
when ISIL seized territory there in 2014. MAG has 55 deminers in
northern Iraq’s Tal Afar region, which was an important strategic
route for ISIL, as it lies between Syria to the west and Mosul to the
east. Abd Hassan is among the Arabs, Turkmen, and Kurds who are
working together to clear the land in al-‘Ayadiya, the last town to be
liberated by the Iraqi security forces and coalition groups about two
years ago. Many of the locals are subsistence farmers and cannot
start growing food again until their land is secure.
Surrounded by mine belts, al-‘Ayadiya itself was heavily con-
taminated with unexploded ordnance and improvised explosive
devices including suicide belts. In the past year there have been
five accidents in an 800,000-plus-square-meter minefield east of
town, so MAG teams have been educating locals about the hazards
involved. Says Abd Hassan, “People, especially children, don’t
understand the dangers.... If they see an interesting object, even a
bomb, they will play with it.” Villagers now alert MAG when they
discover anything that looks suspicious. At press time some 2,217
items had been removed in Tal Afar.
The team’s work is grueling but also fulfilling. Summers are hot,
and the equipment is heavy. “I am up at 4 a.m. and at the MAG base
by 5 a.m. We sort out the kit and check the medical equipment;
then we travel for nearly an hour to our work site in al-‘Ayadiya,”
says Rasha Yousef, 23, who takes turns with her colleagues orga-
nizing the group’s food for the day (a typical lunch is salad and
bread). “I am proud to be part of a team that helps people.... [They]
need to feel safe and be able to rebuild their lives.”
In addition, the deminers’ wages are indispensable to their
families, especially for those whose parents are too old or ill to
work and whose siblings are still of school age. Says Suham Khalaf
Mahamad, 20, “It is a great job to be able to help others and also
support my family. Most of my family is happy for me and fine with
the job I do, except for my mother. She is afraid for me and keeps
telling me to leave. I tell her she needn’t worry.... I will be OK.”
Dalal Jasim, 24, admits her mother isWOMEN AFTER WAR
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 162)
Two years after ISIL
ceded territory in Iraq,
these courageous women
are clearing mines on
their journey back homeby JENNIFER MASON
photographed by SE AN SUTTON