Beirut, Lebanon - 4 April 2017
1. Various of landmine survivors warming up for a football game
2. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Hussein Ghandour, mine survivor and defender in the Lebanon Landmine Survivors Football Team:
"My aim in this game today is to show all the world that we (mine survivors) are not a burden on society as handicapped people. At the same time, we want to show that we have turned our disability into ability. Also we want to show all the countries around us that here in Lebanon, a small country, we can be effective and strong. And to the Israeli enemy, who planted these mines, we want to show that a mine or bomb can not stop us."
3. Wide of players clapping
4. Various of landmine survivors playing football
5. Mid of Reem Makki, Chief Executive Officer at the Lebanese Welfare Association for the Handicapped (LWAH), clapping in the crowd, surrounded by children
6. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Reem Makki, Chief Executive Officer at the Lebanese Welfare Association for the Handicapped (LWAH)
"The Lebanon Landmine Survivors Football Team, which is affiliated with the Lebanese Welfare Association for the Handicapped (LWAH), is a team that was formed in 2005. Its true aim is to help reintegrate landmine survivors and exhibit their abilities. After the process of rehabilitation they went through, we wanted to exhibit their abilities and achievements in sports, specifically in football. They are twenty two team members, all of whom have prosthetic limbs as a result of landmines, and they play several games per year with all kinds of football clubs and local teams. The aim of the match today is to shed light on the dangers of landmines, because today is the International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action."
7. Player scoring goal
Lebanese landmine survivors, with long red football socks pulled over their prosthetic legs, gather in a field near Beirut's southern suburbs.
The Lebanon Landmine Survivors Football Team have been playing since 2005 and are determined to show they can still be sportsmen, despite their injuries.
Defender Hussein Ghandour, who lost an arm and a leg after picking up unexploded cluster munition as a seven-year-old child, says that he wants to show the world that mine survivors are not a burden on society.
"We want to show that we have turned our disability into ability", he says. "Also we want to show all the countries around us that here in Lebanon, a small country, we can be effective and strong. And to the Israeli enemy, who planted these mines, we want to show that a mine or bomb can not stop us."
The Lebanon Landmine Survivors Football Team was formed by the Lebanese Welfare Association for the Handicapped (LWAH), with the aim of helping landmine survivors reintegrate into society.
Each of the team's 22 members have lost one or more limbs to a blast from a landmine or explosive remnant of war, yet they usually compete against football teams with non-disabled players.
They have won friendly games against UN units, embassy teams, local football clubs, teams from NGOs, and many more, according to LWAH.
"After the process of rehabilitation they went through, we wanted to exhibit their abilities and achievements in sports, specifically in football", explains Chief Executive Officer at LWAH, Reem Makki.
"The aim of the match today is to shed light on the dangers of landmines, because today is the International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action", she adds.
Lebanese territories have witnessed high-levels of mine contamination as a result of the country's civil war, the Israeli occupation until 2000 and the summer conflict with Israel in 2006, according to the Britain-based Mines Advisory Group (MAG).
It estimated in a report that the leftover landmines in Lebanon killed 933 people and injured more than 2,780 between 1975 and 2012.
The "Lebanese Mine Action Center," which operates under the Lebanese Army, said that Israel left about 550,000 mines planted in southern Lebanon when it withdrew from the country in May 2000.
