LONDON: Two young men were killed on Tuesday when a landmine exploded as they rode a motorcycle near Al-Nasiriyah Air Base in the countryside northeast of Damascus, the Syrian state media reported.
The victims were from the nearby town of Jayrud, the Syrian Arab News Agency said.
Mohammad Anwar Saleh Nasser, director of Jayrud’s Emergency and Disaster Management Center, said rescue crews were dispatched immediately after reports of the explosion.
The teams recovered the bodies and took them to Jayrud National Hospital, he told SANA.
The incident was the latest in a series of deaths and injuries attributed to mines and other explosive remnants of Syria’s civil war, which began in March 2011.
The Syrian Arab Republic is among the world’s most mine-contaminated countries. The 2025 Landmine Monitor ranked the country second worldwide for casualties caused by unexploded ordnance, or UXO.
The danger has intensified as displaced Syrians return to towns and villages following the December 2024 fall of longtime President Bashar Assad’s regime. The HALO Trust, a UK-based mine-clearance charity, recorded more than 700 deaths and 1,900 injuries from UXO in Syria between December 2024 and March 2026.
By May 2026, HALO and Syria’s mine-action sector estimated that explosives had killed or injured 2,223 people in the 17 months since Assad’s fall. The organizations said the toll was likely an underestimate because Syria lacks a centralized record of explosive-related accidents.
Children account for about one-third of victims of explosive accidents in Syria.
HALO warned that casualties could continue to rise as more families return to areas contaminated by mines and other war remnants.
Landmine Monitor data shows that unexploded ordnance has killed or injured more than 13,000 people in Syria since 2011.
