A worldwide epidemic of trauma is on, and it is accelerating. Injury is now the fourth leading cause of global deaths. WHO estimates a further 40% increase in global deaths from injury up to year 2030. Approximately 75% of the trauma fatalities are found in low-income countries.
A war of aggression
Wars of aggression systematically hit countries that already suffer from natural disasters, endemic diseases, and poverty. The victims are persons with poor pre-injury capacity – different from well-fed, white Westerners.
Every 10 minutes' a person is hit by a land mine or unexploded cluster munitions somewhere in the world. Most likely the victim is a poor farmer or one of his family members. Of ten mine victims, four or five will die before reaching a hospital unless somebody is there to provide life support on the way.
Accelerating
The epidemic is accelerating. Tens of thousands of new mines and cluster munitions are spread in every local war. The latest contributors being Israel in Lebanon (2006), US/NATO in Iraq and Afghanistan (2003 – ), and US/Ethiopia in Somalia (2007).
The epidemic is out of control. A global ban on land mines and cluster weapons will not remove the 200 million devils already laid. Even intensified clearing operations will not remove them for a thousand years.
Conclusion: For generations to come, villagers in the rural South will have to live and die inside communities infested with land mines and cluster munitions.
The time for humanitarian appeals is long since gone.
It is time to concentrate on making victims survive.