‘I just remember this stinging’

ONLY when you meet landmine victims and hear their stories does it strike home how easily Iraqis come in contact with devices.

Rice farmer Shekha Hamed was walking through fields to his own plot of land near the town of Qaladze in the eastern province of Sulaymaniyah, which borders Iran, one dewy morning when he stepped on a mine which blew off the toes on his right foot and tore apart his left leg.

“I didn’t know it was a minefield, there was no demarcation,” he says.