Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

At one point in history, a soldier in combat would have been injured with a bow and arrow. That bow and arrow eventually became a bullet, and in the 1890s, that bullet evolved into the ‘dum-dum bullet,’ designed to expand on impact and inflict severe injury. Because of its potential to gravely wound combatants, The Hague Convention of 1899 prohibited the use of the dum-dum bullet in international warfare.

A century later, landmines, designed to maim and injure, rather than kill, were deemed indiscriminate weapons with potential to inflict serious injury. After a high-profile campaign waged by a coalition of …

The types of close contact injuries inflicted by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are much more serious than those associated with land mines, finds research published in the online journal BMJ Open.

Landmines came into widespread use in the Second World War, where they were designed to injure/maim rather than to kill, with a view to stressing the medical resource of the enemy.

Many were left buried in the ground in regions of conflict long after the fighting had ended, causing them to be inadvertently detonated by civilians stepping on them. But after a high profile campaign, 162 countries signed …