An ammunition depot in Misratah, Libya – credit, UN Photo, UNSMIL
Demining operations have cleared just over 14,000 pieces of derelict explosives in a coastal Libyan city this year.
A partnership between the UN’s support mission in-country (UNSMIL), Italian foreign aid, Libyan domestic partners, and the HALO Trust has been working to remove landmines and unexploded ordnance from the country as early as 2018.
Demining partners on a site visit to Misratah – credit, UN Photo, UNSMIL
According to a field report presented by the Italian-funded Libyan Peace Organization during a visit by the UNSMIL team to the city of Misratah last week, 14,066 items of explosive ordnance from Al-Sweihli Farm between January and September of this year, allowing displaced residents the option to return to their land.
Misratah saw intense fighting during the civil war which erupted in the wake of Colonel Moammar Ghaddafi’s overthrowing by local rebels aided by NATO. Amid the slurry of armed groups active in the country between 2011 and 2020, the Islamic State of North Africa controlled Misratah and Sirte, located between the capital Tripoli in the west and the second city of Benghazi to the east.
Ousting the IS proved to be one of the most violent chapters of the war, and the fighting left behind thousands of unexploded mines, shells, and bombs, which can lie in silence for generations before exploding upon the slightest disturbance. HALO has worked in similar environments for decades, and began training explosive clearance specialists in Tripoli in 2018, before moving to Sirte in 2025, and Misratah in 2026.
“Libyan civilians should not be exposed to such dangers,” said Fatma Zourrig, Chief of UNSMIL’s Mine Action Program.
Protecting communities and reducing the risks associated with unplanned explosions at munitions sites were central themes of a field visit to led by the UNSMIL Mine Action team to Al-Sweihli Farm following an explosion in Misrata’s Al-Sikt area.
Technical assessments conducted during clearance operations have frequently found that abandoned ammunition depots have been a primary factor contributing to the risk of such incidents. One of these depots had already been identified near the Misratah airport by HALO, which has been working to clear it this year.
GNN has reported on HALO’s work before, as well as that of UNSMIL.
In northern Sri Lanka, an area largely avoided by the 2 million tourists who visit the island every year, HALO safely removed its 300,000th landmine leftover from the island’s civil war.
Those mines and unexploded bombs were cleared across an area 33% larger than the island of Manhattan, and their removal allowed for the repopulation of a quarter-million people to their lands and homes.
In early September, GNN reported that UNSMIL made a diplomatic breakthrough after more than a year of working to facilitate discussions between Libya’s double-government. The last remaining belligerents to the civil war agreed on a roadmap for elections to take place in one year, during which contentious issues involving electoral law, the eligibility of candidates, and the national elections body are to be resolved.
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