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A "Mine” is any munition placed under, on, or near the ground or other surface area that is designed to be detonated or exploded by the presence, proximity or contact of a person or vehicle. An antipersonnel mine (APM) is a mine that is designed to be detonated by a person.

Types of landmines

There are four basic types of anti-personnel mines.  A blast mine is activated when a victim treads on it directly.  This type of mine drives fragments of mine casing, dirt and footwear up into the tissue of the leg.  Fragmentation mines are activated by trip-wire and can project fragments over 20 meters.  Directional fragmentation mines are similar but scatter metal fragments in one direction over a range of 100 meters.  Bounding mines are activated by pressure, which drives the mine to a height of one meter before explosion.

Size of the problem

Today, there are over 60 million antipersonnel landmines hidden across more than 70 low-income countries around the world.  One in three countries are mined, including Cambodia, Afghanistan, Laos, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Burma, Iran, Iraq, Kurdistan, Kuwait, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Bosnia, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Rwanda, Uganda, Liberia, Angola, Mozambique, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Columbia, Guatemala, Honduras and Peru.  Landmines claim more than 15,000 victims per year.  90 percent of these are innocent civilians.  Children are particularly at risk because mines resembling toys attract children.

Landmine injuries

Antipersonnel landmines can lead to leg amputation, loss of blood, penetrating injuries to the lower limbs, abdomen and thorax, upper limb injuries, blindness, facial injuries and death.  Injuries are generally more serious in children.

Helping landmine victims Prosthetic programming is an effective way of helping landmine survivors and has many benefits.  For the individual, use of prosthetic limbs allows greater mobility and independence, decreases social stigma and improves opportunities for employment.  Social benefits include a diminished burden on social support services and additional jobs in the areas of prosthetic training and production. Unfortunately, the cost of prosthetic services is very high.  An individually fabricated prosthesis must be replaced every 3 to 5 years for adults and every 6 to 12 months for growing children.  At $125 per prosthesis, this may add up to more than $3000 per amputee over a lifetime.  In developing countries, where amputation rates are highest, per capita income may be only $200 per year, making the cost of prosthetics prohibitive.

In order to address this problem, the CIR’s Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center focuses world-class engineering talent on eliminating barriers to the effective dissemination of artificial limbs and wheelchairs.  By creating high quality, affordable components that can be effectively disseminated in mine-affected areas and opening the way for local professionals to play a more substantial role in the manufacturing and fitting of quality devices, the projects of the RERC help to reduce the unit cost and increase the sustainability of prosthetic services by enabling the provision of long-term rehabilitation services in a manner that is consistent with a nation’s material and human resources.