April 1995

Landmines are indiscriminate weapons that causes death and serious injuries to civilians for decades after a war has ended. Those who survive are usually crippled for life. In Cambodia 1 in 236 people is an amputee because of mines. Children are at special risk, being smaller with vital organs closer to the ground, and because they often think mines are toys.

Health consequences of landmines extend far beyond killing and molesting. They remove large areas of land from productive use, erode community morale, and take away, for rehabilitation and repair, enormous resources that could have been used to promote health in far more positive ways.

The most common landmines is priced from $3 to $40 on the international arms market. When the war is over mine clearing operations are very tedious, expensive and dangerous. Estimates from mine clearing organizations range from $300 to $1000 per mine cleared. Seven million mines were laid during the Gulf war and so far 84 demining experts have been killed or injured in clearing operations there. Military mine clearing equipment is not well suited for humanitarian mine clearance which must obtain 100% clearance as opposed to military demands of 60 to 90 % clearance.

As a medical student and future health professional, I .. / As medical students and future health professionals, we feel that the global landmine catastrophe must now be attended and dealt with in a urgent and responsible way. This means substantially increased resources to worldwide mine clearing, but even more important, a global ban on production, stockpiling, trade and use of anti personnel landmines. Only the strong preventive measure inherent in such a global ban is enough to end the killing, maiming and societal destruction caused by these weapons.

.... Norway must help to solve and prevent this global problem. Today we are contributing money and mine clearing experts to demining operations but to prevent .....

..... NorMSIC calls upon the Norwegian government to support a complete ban on the production, trade and use of anti personnel landmines.

..... We call upon the Norwegian government to support a total ban on anti-personnel mines as bravely as Belgium did recently.

April 1995

The use of anti personnel landmines in conflicts has led to a global humanitarian catastrophe. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross there are currently 100 million landmines spread out in 60 countries. Approximately 800 people are killed or maimed every month by these mines.

Landmines does not differentiate soldiers from playing children. They are lying like the devils seeds for many years after the war has ended. The result is easily visible on the streets of Kabul, Asmara, Kirkuk, Maputo and too many other places. Amputated children and adults. Only very few of them will ever have the chance to get a prosthesis.

Made to maim
There are mainly three types of mines; anti-personnel mines, anti-tank mines and sea mines. The anti-personnel mines are the main cause of the humanitarian crisis, as they are constructed to be trigged by people and often to invalidize rather than kill. The following text was put in an advertisement by a Pakistani mine producer:

The mine is formed to invalidize personnel. Research has shown that it is better to injure the enemy than kill him. A wounded person is in need of medical care, transport and evacuation backwards and thereby create disordered in the transport lines in the battlefield. A wounded person also has a negative psychological effect on his comrade soldiers.

The amount of explosive is often calculated to make a person permanently invalid. This is the cause why 30 % of all mine accidents leads to amputations of a leg.

Complicated wounds
If You step on a mine there is four possibilities: 1. You die immediately by the explosion. 2. You bleed to death after a while. 3. You are taken care of, but die later from infection and sepsis. 4. You survive with or without amputation.
The mine explosion tears muscles, tendons, skin and bone apart. If you are lucky the blood vessels are ligated by the heat, otherwise you will soon loose much blood. The wounds are commonly very contaminated with foreign bodies deeply buried, creating foci for infections and abscesses. Often there is need for amputation and reamputation after a while.

Medical problem
Because the landmine problem now has reached such enormous proportions, it has caught the attention of medical professionals. Only in Cambodia there are about 40 000 leg amputees. Probably the number of casualties are as high. In Afghanistan, which is seen by many as one big minefield, landmines has killed around 200 000 people according to the UN. 45 percent of the 269 patients who were admitted to the Operating Room at the Hospital in Keren, Eritrea the first half year after the liberation in 1991, came because of landmine injuries. These injuries put an enormous pressure on health services and resources that could have been used in far more positive ways. What the big number of invalids and unusable areas of land means for the national economy and food production is not measurable.

Clearance - expensive and dangerous
Mines are cheap to buy and deploy, but extremely expensive and difficult to remove. To clear one mine take about 100 times as long time as it took to deploy it and the cost is also about 100 times higher. Mine clearers are in addition often experience accidents. 84 demining experts are killed or injured in mine clearance after the Gulf War. As it is developing countries that is worst affected these countries do not have any possibility to clear mines efficiently themselves.

Inhumane weapons
The UN Secretary General argue that landmines should be put in the same category as chemical and biological weapons. The 1980 convention that limits the use of "especially inhumane weapons" contains a landmine protocol. However this protocol has serious weaknesses. It does not include civil wars, and has no restrictions on production, storing and export of mines. It has no procedure for enforcement, monitoring or sanctions towards those who break it. Even if it is followed it fails to take into account the delayed impact of mines after a war ends. Only about 50 countries have signed the treaty that will be reviewed in autumn this year.

Medical students care
Upset about the magnitude of the mine problem the International Federation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA) adopted a statement where they support a ban on production, trade and use of anti-personnel mines. The IFMSA Standing committee on Refugees and Peace (SCORP) is working to inform about the issue and to cooperate with other organizations to influence our governments to support such a ban. A great number of other organizations are working towards the same goal. Among the most well known are UNICEF, Save the Children, Medicins Sans Frontiers and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Here in (your country) it is ...... that plays a leading role. The medical students at ...../ Here at (our faculty) we are planning to inform and have Actions.... along with ( collecting signatures) .... (writing letters to local politicians...... ........

Sources:
The Landmine Crisis; Foreign Affairs Sept/Oct 1994
Landmines - A Deadly Legacy; Physicians for Human Rights, May 1994
Antipersonnel mines; Swedish Save the Children, January 1995
Injuries from Anti personnel mines: the experience of the International Committee of the Red Cross; British Medical Journal, December 1991, Pages 1509-1512

Nations most affected:
Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iraq,
Kuwait, Mozambique, Somalia, Sudan, former Yugoslavia.

Fact Sheet
Average number of people killed or injured worldwide each year	15 000
Average cost of a landmine	$ 3 - $ 30
Cost to clear a landmine	$ 300 - $ 1 000
Average number of landmines produced each year	10 million
Number of countries with landmine incidents	60+

Major producers and exporters of landmines over past 25 years:
Belgium, Bulgaria, China, Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Italy,
former Soviet Union,United Kingdom, United States, former Yugoslavia.