Can you honestly say that 26,000 soldiers per year will be saved by having landmines in place?
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landminesurvivors.org
Simply put, landmines are designed to blow up the people who step on them. Unfortunately, they can’t discriminate between soldiers in battle and civilians in peace time. And it’s the landmines left behind after wars that do the most damage.
Landmines are weapons of mass-destruction in slow motion. They have killed more people than nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons combined.
There are essentially three kinds of landmines (also called anti-personnel landmines):
Blast Mines are hand-laid or scattered from the air. When stepped on, the blast can rip off a foot or part of a leg. The upward force also drives debris into the wound which can cause amputation of even more of the limb.
Fragmentation Mines are usually surface-laid and are often trip-wire activated. When detonated, the explosion projects hundreds of fragments (similar to a shotgun blast) over a wide area.
Directional Mines are similar to fragmentation mines but are designed to project fragments in a predetermined direction. In essence, they are fragmentation mines which can be aimed.
Over 400 million landmines have been laid since the beginning of World War II. Today, it is estimated that nearly a quarter of these mines are still alive, laying in wait for victims. It is also estimated that landmines claim 26,000 victims a year. At that rate, innocent victims will still be stepping on landmines 3,000 years from now. |
