Abdul Qader, a 5-year-old Syrian child, who was displaced from the city of Aleppo with his parents, sits with his father in front of the family house near the city of al-Bab in northern Syria, on November 18, 2021. Abdul Qader lost part of his left leg and left hand, and his face was disfigured, when a shell fired by regime forces hit his neighbourhood in al-Bab, as he left his family home to join his friends for a ball game in 2019. PHOTO: Bakr ALKASEM / AFP

Explosive remnants of war have killed 19 civilians in Syria since the start of November, a war monitor reported on Saturday.

“Nineteen Syrian civilians, including eight children and three women, have been killed by explosive remnants of war since the beginning of November, in the provinces of Idlib, Aleppo, Quneitra, Daraa, Hama, and Homs,” the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Explosives left in fields, along roads, or even in buildings by all sides in Syria’s decade-long conflict have wounded thousands of civilians and killed hundreds of others.

Syria overtook Afghanistan last year as the country with the highest number of recorded casualties from landmines and explosive remnants of war.

The Landmine Monitor said this month Syria had registered the most victims for the first time since its annual reports began in 1999, with 2,729 people either killed or injured.

Across Syria, one in three populated communities are thought to be contaminated by explosive ordnance, the United Nations said in March.

Syria’s war is estimated to have killed nearly half a million people and displaced millions since it began with a brutal crackdown of anti-government protests in 2011.

AFP