UNIFIL launched last week an explosive ordnance risk education (EORE) campaign targeting potentially vulnerable groups, including children and displaced people, in the mission’s area of operation.

Working in coordination with the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS), the Lebanese Mine Action Centre (LMAC) and non-governmental organizations, UNIFIL peacekeepers will reach, over the next couple of months, hundreds of children, young people and internally displaced people (IDPs) in 17 southern Lebanese towns and villages.

The campaign kicked off with the first session organized on 20 January in the Jamil Jaber Bazzi Public School in Bint Jbeil. About 100 children participated in the first session, which also saw a UNIFIL explosive ordnance disposal team from the mission’s Italian contingent perform a mock disposal using robots and other explosive disposal gear. Instructors from Lebanese Army and the “SHEILD Association” NGO offered a classroom educational session. They also explained to them how to identify different types of explosive ordnances based on their shapes.

The School’s Director, Laura Ayyoub, said the awareness session was very important for the schoolchildren. “Students learned about the landmines left by wars, including cluster bombs,” she said. “Today, the children have become more alert, and now know how to act if they find any strange object: they should not touch it or deal with it.”

According to UNIFIL Civil Affairs Officer Elie Chaaya, who helped organize this campaign, the areas are selected based on their proximity to the Blue Line. One of the sessions is also planned for those displaced from towns and villages close to the Blue Line and currently living in Tyre.

Last year, UNIFIL’s Indian peacekeepers carried out similar awareness campaign reaching hundreds of children south-eastern Lebanon.

Such campaigns are important to minimize the risk of children and other residents of south Lebanon falling victim to unexploded ordnances, cluster munitions, landmines and other explosive remnants from the recent conflict.