In northwest Syria, unexploded ordinances and drone strikes make daily life perilous

IDLIB, Syria and PARIS -- Abdelkader Madirati was only 8 years old when he was the victim of a cluster bomb which caused the amputation of his right hand and most of his leg in the town of Tadef, north of Aleppo, where he lives.

"He found a cluster bomb that he thought was a small ball, and it exploded in his hand," his mother told ABC News.

Madirati lives in the country's northwest, where locals and aid groups said that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces have in recent months escalated their strikes on civilians, including the use of Russian-made guided missiles and drones, amongst its already deadly arsenal including unexploded explosive ordnance -- relics of over a decade-long crisis -- that have threatened farmers, fishermen, food production and security.

The Carter Center said that from December 2012 to May 2021, about 972,051 explosive munitions were used across Syria, with an estimated failure rate of 10% to 30%, leaving some 100,000 to 300,000 of them undetonated.

Home to 4.5 million people, this part of the country is also facing other crises. The communities are still facing a worsening economic crisis and reeling from last year's earthquakes, which claimed the lives of at least 60,000 people and injured many more across northwest Syria and its neighbor Turkey.

Under the care of Dr. Gazhal Hilal at the Happy Steps Center for Prosthetics -- where the average cost of a prosthetic limb ranges from $400 to $1,000 -- in the city of Azaz in the northern countryside of Aleppo, Madirati has been working on his recovery and is now able to walk again, thanks to a prosthetic leg he's been fitted with.

But the journey has been long and not without financial strain on the family of four.

Living about 50 km away from the center, which they had to visit daily, was "a major financial obstacle for us as a poor family," with a round trip car fare of about $30, said his mother, who asked not to be named.

She told ABC News that she borrowed money from relatives and friends to cover the expenses, and to this day still owes her neighbor $300.

Now 10, Madirati said he's only starting to get to terms with his injury, however, he's also been facing bullying.

"Everything has changed," he said. "My friends are now refusing to play with me. Some of them make fun of me and others are afraid of my appearance. So I began to refrain from leaving the house and left school."

He added, "I wish I had friends to play with, without them making fun of me. I wish to return to school, and to have a screen in my home to watch children's programs, and I also wish to have a smart prosthetic hand."

His mother said the bullying and mockery destroyed her son's mental health, and that his "future is ruined forever."

Since 2016, the White Helmets, formerly known as Syria Civil Defence, have been working on identifying and removing unexploded ordnance with a dedicated and specialized team, which, throught 2023, was able to remove 24,000 munitions of war remnants, including about 22,000 cluster bombs.

Last year alone, they documented 24 explosions of war remnants in northwestern Syria, which led to the deaths of seven people, including four children, and the injuries of 29 others, including 19 children and two women.

In the same time, they identified 531 areas contaminated with munitions, including cluster munitions, projectiles, grenades, missiles, mortar shells, air-dropped bombs, guided missiles and landmines.

But this task is not without its danger. Since they started, four volunteers have lost their lives, and others have been injured, as "large numbers of remnants of war and unexploded ordnance [are] in areas close to the contact lines with the regime forces and Russia."

Local farmers have been wounded

Anwar Halabi, 64, a farmer who owns almost 4.9 acres in the village of Al-Hamidiyah, in the Al-Ghab Plain, was struck by a grounded missile on March 1, while spraying insecticide on his land onboard his tractor. Propelled a few meters away from the engine, he received shrapnel across his body, broke a knee, and lost his hearing and some flesh in his legs, as well as his tractor.

Al-Ghab Plain, located in the Al-Suqaylabiyah District, which covers about 595,523 acres of land, and the Orontes, a 355-mile-long river beginning in Lebanon and flowing through the Turkish province of Hatay, have been bearing the brunt of the regime's increased attacks in recent months.

"Targeting farmers and agricultural lands is not new, the area [is] used to be attacked every two or three weeks," Halabi told ABC News, arguing however that it escalated at the beginning of year, and now, "not a day is without targeting." It is "a major obstacle for all farmers," according to him, who hasn't been able to work his land since the attack.

The Al-Assad government has rarely acknowledged the strikes within its own country. The president last year told Sky News Arabia about the fight against terrorism, saying, "If we assume that the state was the one that carried out the killing and displacement, then it bears responsibility, but there is terrorism and the state was fighting terrorism, and terrorism was killing, destroying and burning."

He said the state's role is to "defend" itself against what it sees as terrorism, later adding, "The one who bears responsibility is the one who intended to wage war, the one who planned the war, and the one who attacked, not the one being attacked."

Mounir Mustafa, of the White Helmets, said, "This war, the siege, the destruction of infrastructure, and the targeting of hospitals and schools with attacks is a systematic and deliberate policy."

White Helmets team said they documented in 2023 the killing of 162 people, including 46 children and 23 women, and the wounding of 684 others due to attacks by the government, Russia and Iranian militias.

For Halabi, the farmer, he said he fears "this situation will be a disaster for me and my family, because I will not be able to reap the wheat crop, which means losing my entire season and losing the costs of the seeds I planted."

Agricultural workers represent about 30% of the total workforce in northwestern Syria, where almost 90% of people are unemployed, according to Islamic Relief.

"Assad's forces are focusing on Al-Ghab Plain and the western Aleppo countryside because they are among the most fertile areas," Tammam Al-Mahmoud, director general of agriculture in Idlib, said.

Though the doctors told him he'll recover in time with the help of physical therapy, the 58-year-old says, "this injury destroyed my life and I lost my only source of livelihood."

Al-Mahmoud estimates the area where drones are most likely to strike including between 37,065 to 49,421 acres of land, and that the lives of all farmers, from the Latakia to the western Aleppo countrysides, are in peril.

Saleh Jumaa, 48, who's been fishing on the banks of the Orontes River for 20 years, said drones used by the regime pose "a great danger to our presence on the banks", and makes him, and his colleagues, "a constant and easy target."

Two fishermen have already died, Jumaa said, including someone he knows from the village of Muhambal.

Though he escaped a recent attack, he says he'll continue fishing to earn a living and feed his children, knowing that "unfortunately, the price for my work may be my blood."

A region were food security is perilous

At the end of 2023, the World Food Programme said it was was forced to end its general food assistance in Syria, due to a lack of funding, leaving 3.2 million people in need.

In already dire circumstances, these targeted attacks gravely jeopardize food production.

"The bombing may lead to the burning of crops, as happened the previous year, and harvesting operations may be delayed or not take place," said Al-Mahmoud, the agriculture director, adding that they were generating the "collapse and the loss of a large portion of production, which will lead to economic losses for our fellow farmers."

White Helmets' Mustafa said that "food insecurity has reached record levels, as 80% of Syrians suffer from food insecurity, and more than 90% of Syrians live below the poverty line, while the price of the food basket has increased by 85% over last year."

"Its [wheat] loss greatly affects the food security of the residents of northwestern Syria," according to Al-Mahmoud.

But he noted that bakeries were operating routinely so far because they're using flour from last year's stock. Problems may appear in August, if the wheat crop is damaged or not harvested, he said.