After eight years of conflict, landmines and explosives continue to threaten the lives of families in eastern Ukraine. Since 2014, HALO has recorded nearly 2,000 casualties—men, women and children—suffering life-changing injuries or even death. Just last year, a family of four was killed when their car hit an anti-vehicle mine.

As the fighting moves back and forth, villages become battlegrounds on the frontline, leaving vast areas of agricultural and forest land littered with explosives once the battle moves on. As the conflict restricts access to the important industrial cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, it is vital that this land is made safe, so that villages like Kodema, where Lubov lives in eastern Ukraine, can begin to recover.

HALO employs over 400 local men and women in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, many of whom come from mined communities where people have been plunged into poverty because they can no longer access their land.

Since 2016, our teams have removed hundreds of explosive items, from landmines to cluster bombs, spread across 420 hectares of land. We are also mapping and marking dangerous areas and have begun using machinery to help us clear battlefields and buildings damaged in the fighting. In addition to making land safe, we deliver risk education, helping people, particularly children, understand how to stay safe.