In the Quito Cuanvale municipality of Angola for example, of the 330,000 mines that were sown, the location of only 80,000 is known. In recent decades the problems caused by landmines have been exacerbated by modem technology, such as the design of undetectable plastic blast mines which render their sighting and their removal extremely difficult. Furthermore, their small size and type of design have tended to attract children to play with them. Models such as " scatterbabies " and " butterfly mines " are cruel examples of the deceptive design.ĭanger to civilians is further increased by the development of remote-delivery methods capable of deploying enormous numbers of mines over vast tracts of land from a distance, for example by aircraft, rocket or artillery. These methods facilitate the random, undetectable an d unmapped use of landmines. The most common types of antipersonnel landmines are blast mines, usually designed to explode when the victim steps directly on the mine. Other types, such as directional fragmentation and bounding mines, will kill or maim not only the victim activating the mine but also anyone within its effective range. In Angola, for example, at least thirty-seven known types of landmines were used over the past twenty years. Their prices vary between US $ 3 and US $ 75 per unit whilst the cost of clearance estimated by the United Nations, including support and logistic costs, is between US $ 300 and US $ 1,000 per mine. ![]() Two categories of landmines are commonly in use: large antitank mines designed to be triggered by vehicles, and the small inexpensive antipersonnel mines designed specifically to kill or incapacitate a human being.Īccording to Human Rights Watch, more than 340 antipersonnel landmine models have been produced in at least 48 nations around the world. They cause excessive suffering to the injured and their families and have devastating effects upon communi ties and their environment for decades after conflicts have ceased. The majority of landmine victims are civilians who step on a mine after armed conflicts has ceased. In some countries, over one-third of all casualties due to landmines are women and children. Landmines are indiscriminate weapons that lie dormant until triggered, be it by a soldier, or a civilian, a friend or a foe, an adult or a child. The most critical situations are found in Angola with more than 9 million mines, in Mozambique with up to 2 million and in Somalia with I million. Ethiopia, Eritrea and Sudan also have to face severe situations, and countries like Rwanda, Liberia and Libya have landmine problems on a smaller scale. With an estimated 30 million mines strewn in at least 18 countries, Africa is the continent most severely affected by the large scale sowing of landmines. ![]() Mine-laying has become common practice in virtually every conflict situation where the ICRC is present, and the institution is confronted daily with the harrowing consequences of the widespread and indiscriminate use of this deadly weapon. Mines are now proliferating so fast that there are perhaps as many as I 10 million of them spread in 64 countries worldwide, and it is estimated that 2 to 5 million more mines are being laid each year. Scattered like deadly seeds, they kill and maim between 1.000 and 2.000 people per month, most of them innocent civilians.
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