History of mines
The purpose of anti-personnel mines is to maim instead of kill because more resources are used to carry a wounded soldier, than to leave him in the battlefield. Anti-personnel mines were first developed as a means to prevent anti-tank mines from being stolen by the enemy. In that sense the anti-personnel mines initially played a defensive role, e.g. to protect strategic areas, such as borders, bridges and camps in order to limit the enemy’s freedom of movement.

After a while the anti-personnel mine was used to target civilians, especially in internal conflicts. They were used for terrorising communities by denying the civil population access to their lands and the freedom of mobility. The marking and mapping of minefields was not standard procedure, and that made it impossible for anyone to see, where the minefield was.

Anti-personnel mine
There are four categories of anti-personnel mines:

• Blast mines that injure by pressure from the blast alone
• Fragmentation mines are mostly released by tripwire and injure with metal splinters
• Bounding fragmentation mines, which shoot upwards and detonate about one metre above ground where it blasts metal splinters in a 360 degree circle
• Directional fragmentation mines, which have a horizontal blast that allows the shrapnel to be fired in only one direction

All anti-personnel mines are built to injure and maim adults. If a child (with a smaller body mass) detonates a device the injuries can be extremely crippling and even fatal.

Anti-personnel mines are easy and cheap to produce. On average, the cost of removing a landmine is 1000 times the cost of production.

Anti-tank mine
Anti-tank mines are designed to explode if a vehicle or tank drives over them, typically requiring a pressure of 100 - 250kg to activate. Anti-tank mines can easily be manipulated to blast with far less pressure such as the weight of a person.

Unexploded ordnance
Unexploded ordnance (UXO) can be anything from small hand grenades to missiles, and poses as great a threat as mines. Being visible and accessible on the ground is exactly the problem. Badly damaged and sometimes brightly coloured ammunition in the curious hands of a child can be enough to trigger an explosion.