But the most recent, and needlessly tragic, example of the damage African land-mines do is Senegal. The fight has intensified in recent years, as the MFDC has received growing support from sympathisers in the army of neighbouring Guinea Bissau. The MFDC has laid mines indiscriminately throughout Casamance and is still doing so. But large parts of Casamance are now effectively uninhabitable and civilian casualties have mounted alarmingly. Crops rot in the fields and the local population is now largely displaced and dependent on food aid.
Thousands are in miserable refugee camps in nearby Gambia.
Once idyllic, Casamance has been largely destroyed as a viable society. Worse still, mines have become a way of life. A local market in cheap Chinese plastic mines has grown up. Casamance now resembles the destroyed societies of Sierra Leone and Liberia, further along the West Africa coast. These conflicts all have civilian populations as their main victims.