A childhood interrupted: How weapon contamination disrupts education in Iraq

When accidents occur, the consequences often include prolonged interruptions to education, making learning more difficult or forcing children to fall behind or leave school altogether. Sirwan’s story illustrates how a single incident can abruptly alter a child’s education, with lasting effects for both the child and their family.

“I had lost my right hand; the hand I used to write with,” says Sirwan Nabi, who was only 16 years old when a single moment changed the course of his life and brought his education to an abrupt halt. Today, at 18, he is still determined to continue learning, but he remains several years behind his classmates after a landmine explosion near his home in the mountainous border area of Sidakan, in northern Iraq.

Sirwan grew up in a mountainous border area in Erbil Governorate, where weapon contamination continues to pose a serious threat. Like many boys in rural communities, he worked as a shepherd, helping his family tend livestock in areas used daily for decades, often without knowing the hidden dangers beneath the soil.

On a July morning in 2023, Sirwan was herding sheep in the mountains, less than two kilometers from his house. It was a place he passed by every day. He had stopped there for breakfast, as he often did.

“That day, I found something that looked beautiful,” he recalls. “It was small, like a pipe, yellow and shiny. It was lying clearly on the sand.”
When Sirwan touched it, it immediately exploded in his hand.

The blast shattered his right arm and left numerous metal fragments in his legs. Still conscious, he called for help, but at first, his family thought he had been injured by an animal. Four people carried him to a car. He was rushed from one hospital to another, ending up at Erbil Emergency Hospital, where surgeons were forced to amputate his right arm that same night.

No one told Sirwan before the operation that he would lose his arm. He only found out when he woke up. “I was 16 years old. I had lost my right hand; the hand I used to write with,” he says.