An eight year old boy was killed and his father injured in a landmine explosion in Al-Suwaidiyah village in Al-Khokhah District, western Yemen, highlighting the continuing threat posed by landmines to civilians in Yemen\u2019s western coastal areas.<\/p>\n
On 14 February 2025, Mohammed Ali Zalafi travelled with his son, Musa, to Al-Khokhah market to purchase supplies for their family. Because they needed to transport a large quantity of goods, the father brought his son with him on the journey. Each travelled on a donkey along a dirt road commonly used by local residents.<\/p>\n
According to the father, the journey to the market passed without incident, but the explosion occurred during the return trip after the child moved slightly away from the usual path and stepped on a landmine planted beside the road.<\/p>\n
The blast caused severe injuries to Musa and wounded his father with shrapnel injuries.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Project Masam, Zalafi said he initially struggled to understand what had happened after the explosion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw flames in front of me, and then I saw my son Musa covered in blood,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Zalafi added that he briefly lost consciousness and later found his son lying on the ground with critical injuries.<\/p>\n
Farmers working nearby responded immediately and transported the father and child to Al-Khokhah Hospital. Musa later died from his injuries after losing a large amount of blood.<\/p>\n
The father survived with injuries to his hand and abdomen, as well as hearing damage caused by the force of the explosion. Zalafi works as a day labourer on local farms and supports a family of ten children.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been seeing him in my dreams ever since,\u201d he said. \u201cI am trying to return to work, but the pain of losing my son remains with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also warned about the continuing danger posed by landmines along civilian routes frequently used by residents and livestock.<\/p>\n
The incident reflects wider risks facing civilians in Yemen\u2019s western coastal areas, where contamination continues to affect agricultural land, roads, and daily movement routes used by local communities.<\/p>\n
In many affected areas, activities such as travelling to markets, farming, collecting water, and herding livestock continue to expose civilians to explosive threats.<\/p>\n
Musa\u2019s death is one of many incidents involving civilians in contaminated areas of Yemen, where landmines and explosive remnants of war continue to pose long term risks to communities years after fighting moved away from some regions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An eight year old boy was killed and his father injured in a landmine explosion in Al-Suwaidiyah village in Al-Khokhah District, western Yemen, highlighting the continuing threat posed by landmines to civilians in Yemen\u2019s western coastal areas. On 14 February 2025, Mohammed Ali Zalafi travelled with his son, Musa, to Al-Khokhah market to purchase supplies…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":23258,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[2209,2210,550,2203,1655,1210,1996,2206,356,592,165,1967,263,102,2208,2207,2211,1466,1808,249],"class_list":["post-23257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-access-to-markets-yemen","tag-agricultural-communities-yemen","tag-anti-personnel-mines-yemen","tag-child-victims-yemen","tag-civilian-casualties-yemen","tag-civilian-protection-yemen","tag-conflict-affected-communities","tag-contaminated-roads-yemen","tag-explosive-remnants-of-war","tag-humanitarian-crisis-yemen","tag-humanitarian-mine-action","tag-landmine-survivors-yemen","tag-mine-clearance-yemen","tag-project-masam","tag-protection-of-children","tag-rural-communities-yemen","tag-safe-movement-yemen","tag-war-remnants-yemen","tag-western-coast-yemen","tag-yemen-landmines","category-16","description-off"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projectmasam.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projectmasam.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projectmasam.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projectmasam.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projectmasam.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23257"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/projectmasam.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23259,"href":"https:\/\/projectmasam.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23257\/revisions\/23259"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projectmasam.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projectmasam.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projectmasam.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projectmasam.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}