MCPAMine Clearance Planning Agency

Afghan humanitarian mine actionSince 1990

Field storiesCompleted · 9 April 2026

Rapid response · Nahrin market · Nahrin district · Baghlan Province

The junk shop in Nahrin bazaar

A single call to the national mine-action hotline sent a quick response team into a crowded market, and to a scrap shop where live explosive ordnance lay piled among the goods.

Inside a scrap yard piled with metal, wheels and machine parts, an MCPA team member in a grey uniform leans over to search while a young man in blue watches.
Team MCPA-QRT-01 searches the junk shop, 9 April 2026. MCPA field photograph.

On the road from Baghlan-e Jadid to Nahrin, the marks of past fighting are still visible: destroyed checkpoints, walls scarred by bullets. Nahrin district, in the east of Baghlan Province, has seen years of conflict.

A resident of the district called the emergency hotline of the Directorate of Mine Action Coordination with a worrying report. Explosive ordnance, he said, was being stored in a junk shop in the district market.

Two shells, and then the rest

MCPA's quick response team, MCPA-QRT-01, planned the task, coordinated with the authorities and drove to Nahrin. They met local security officials first, then went to the central market to inspect the scrap-metal shop.

On the surface, nothing seemed wrong. The owner, working alongside his son, showed the team two unexploded shells and believed that was the whole of it. The team's experience suggested otherwise.

Searching carefully through the rusting metal and miscellaneous goods, they found explosive ordnance piled among the scrap: dozens of items of different types, any of which could have exploded if handled carelessly. A few metres away, the market was crowded with people going about their day, with no idea what was stored behind the shop front.

Shells and other explosive items laid out in rows on the ground beside an MCPA team sign, marked with red and white markers.
A plume of smoke and dust rises from a controlled explosion in a remote valley.
The items recovered from the shop, and their controlled destruction. MCPA field photographs.

Working with the district security forces, the team removed every explosive item from the shop and destroyed them safely. Then they held a risk-education session for the market's shopkeepers and scrap collectors, the people most likely to come across ordnance in the course of their trade.

A crowd of men and boys, some carrying sacks of scrap, gather beside an MCPA vehicle displaying a poster of explosive items.
Risk education for shopkeepers and scrap collectors in Nahrin market. MCPA field photograph.

Nothing happened

That day, Nahrin bazaar looked as it always does: children playing, shopkeepers busy, people going about their business. In rapid-response work, that is the point. The team's report describes what they prevented as a silent catastrophe, one that could have changed the lives of hundreds of families.

A note on the figures

The field report describes the items found as "dozens" and does not give an exact count, so we have not given one here.

Source

MCPA case-study report 02, UNDP-funded project (ABADEI 2.0, STFA Northeast (PAIDAAR) Outcome 1), "Mine Action Support for IDPs and Returnees in North Eastern Afghanistan", task MAPA-Hotline-000563, submitted 14 May 2026. Photographs: MCPA Field Operation Unit.