411: Landmines
Author: 411 &UNHCR
It is estimated that there are more than 110 million active mines-one land mine for every 20 children.
- Every month over 2,000 people are killed or maimed by mine explosions. Most of the casualties are civilians who are killed or injured after hostilities have ended.
- For every mine cleared, 20 are laid in its place. In 1994, approximately 100,000 were removed, while an additional 2 million were planted.
- Children are more vulnerable to the landmines due to their behavior, curiosity, the jobs they perform (such as firewood or water collection, herding livestock and scavenging) and their smaller size making them unable to survive substantial blood loss.
- Anti-personnel mines are priced at $3 to $30 each. The cost to the international community of neutralizing them ranges from $300 to $1000.
- The cost to remove all 110 million active mines is estimated at approximately $33 billion. Many experts believe that under current conditions it would take more than 1,100 years to clear the entire world of mines?provided that no additional mines are planted.
- Land mine usage has dramatically increased over the past 20 years with an emphasis on its potential as a weapon to terrorize civilians. Mines are used to deny access to or usage of farmlands, irrigation channels, roads, waterways and public utilities.
- Land mine victims need blood transfusions twice as often as people injured by bullets or fragments. The number of units of blood required to operate on patients with mine injuries is between 2 and 6 times greater than that needed by other war casualties.
- Surgical care and the fitting of an orthopedic appliance cost about $3,000 per amputee in developing countries. This means a total expenditure of $750 million for the 250,000 amputees registered worldwide by the United Nations.
- Manual mine clearance is extremely dangerous currently accidents occur at a rate of one every 1-2,000 mines destroyed.
- Buried landmines can remain active for over 50 years. The threat they pose thus lingers long after hostilities have ceased. Mines maim and kill tens of thousands of people each year, most of them women and children.
- In addition to inflicting physical and psychological damage on civilians, landmines disrupt social services, threaten food security by preventing thousands of hectares of productive land from being farmed, and hinder the return and resettlement of refugees and displaced persons.
- Cambodia has the highest rate of disablement in the world due to landmines (killing a minimum of 300 people each month) with 7 million plus mines in the country equaling two mines for every child. Similarly Angola suffers from 100 plus deaths from landmines per month and has 20,000 plus amputees.
