It is estimated that landmines have killed or injured more than one million people since 1975, the vast majority of them civilians, including an appalling number of children. Decades after they are laid, landmines can still kill. If there is no ban, the mines laid today could still be active in the middle of the next century. Many land-mine victims, fifty per cent or more, are killed outright by the blast or die before medical help can be given. Children are particularly vulnerable because they are closer to the centre of the blast and because their chances of surviving massive loss of blood is minimal.
Children are often the victims of their own curiosity and love of play.
Mines, with their different shapes and colours, can be enticing. Familiarity breeds contempt - the sheer numbers of mines scattered over the landscape often leads a child to regard them as harmless everyday objects. In January 1994 in Malanje, Angola, little Tunisia became yet another of the town's orphans. The anti-personnel mine has been portrayed as a defensive weapon designed to slow an enemy advance and protect important installations. Intended to maim rather than kill, the accepted view is that it aims to tie up enemy resources in the evacuation and treatment of the wounded.