Syria
A merchant sorts through desert truffles at a stall in a market in the city of Hama in Syria on March 6, 2023. Photo: Louai Beshara/AFP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - At least 14 truffle hunters were killed by a land mine allegedly left behind by Islamic State (ISIS) militants in the Syrian desert, state media reported on Sunday.
“Fourteen citizens were martyred and eight others were injured as a result of a mine explosion left behind by ISIS terrorists in the Raqqa desert, while they were collecting truffle mushrooms,” SANA said, citing a statement from Raqqa Governor Abdul Razzaq Khalifa.
Despite repeated warnings from authorities, hundreds of poverty-stricken Syrians venture into the Badia desert between February and April each year in search of truffles. The desert is known to be a hideout for jihadists and also contains landmines, making it a high-risk area to search for the delicacy.
On Friday, at least five people were killed in an ISIS ambush while truffle hunting in Syria’s central Homs province, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor.
ISIS rose to power and seized swathes of Iraqi and Syrian land in a brazen offensive in 2014, declaring a so-called “caliphate.”
While the group was declared territorially defeated in both countries in 2017 and 2019 respectively, it still continues to pose serious security risks through hit-and-run attacks, bombings, and abductions, especially across the vast expanses of the Syrian desert as well as several Iraqi provinces.
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