The Land Mine Crisis: A Humanitarian Disaster

Like a deadly disease long absent and assumed conquered, the land mine, that scourge of the battlefield of World War I, has reemerged on a scale unimagined and with hideous, unanticipated effects. There is today a global land mine crisis. And while it began as a military problem, it is now an ongoing humanitarian disaster.

The United Nations estimates that, in the course of recent civil and international strife, more than 100 million mines have been laid in 62 countries. These mines have been placed not only in combat zones, but also in areas of purely civilian and commercial activity, thus bringing terror to large populations. In the hinterlands and countrysides of the world, the legless, blinded, ravaged bodies of the living are an increasingly common sight. They are condemned to a future of marginal social and economic existence and place an impossible burden on nations striving for development. Mines have been planted around key economic installations, including electric plants and power lines, water treatment plants, road networks, market centers, and port facilities. By neutralizing essential infrastructure, mines present a virtually insuperable obstacle to post-conflict peace-building.

People continue to use land that they may or may not know is mined because they must cultivate their fields, fetch water, collect firewood, or need a place for their children to play. Elsewhere, vast tracts of potentially productive land have been turned into no-man’s-lands by extensive mining. Most of the nearly 20 million refugees in the world today want to return home, but U.N. assistance for repatriation and the repopulation of former war zones is impeded by the problem of uncleared mines. When farmers cannot survive by working the land, they gather in cities and large towns where work is scarce and housing is poor.