Landmine injuries at the Emergency Management Center in Erbil, Iraq

The case records of landmine injured patients who had been admitted to the Emergency Management Centre in Erbil city from July 1998 to July 2007 were reviewed and descriptively analyzed.Two hundred eighty five landmine injured patients were admitted to the center, their mean ± SD age was 26.5 ± 13.2 years (range 6-71 years), 95.1% were males, nearly 50% were between 19 to 35 years of age and 96.8% were civilians. Around 72% of victims sustained limb amputations; 58.6% lower limb and 13.3% upper limb out of the total. The hospital mortality rate was 2.1%. The number of admissions for landmine injury was steadily decreasing between July 1998 and July 2001, followed by prominent increase between July 2002 and July 2003. The highest proportion of admissions occurred in summer (35.4%) and majority of incidents occurred along the borders with Iran and Turkey (61.8%).Civilian male adolescents and young adults constituted the majority of hospitalized landmine victims in Erbil governorate. While a high proportion of victims sustained lower limb amputations, upper limb amputations particularly among children and injury to head and face were relatively common which might be attributed to handling explosives. This emphasizes the need to examine the reasons behind handling explosives.Landmines have been used widely and indiscriminately throughout the world. They frequently result in devastating effects mainly among civilians in post conflict situations. In addition to causing death, injury and disability, landmines have many indirect public health consequences on civilian populations like being an important economic threat through preventing access to large areas of land and thus hindering agriculture work, livestock herding and infrastructure improvement [1-3]. They also cause displacement of population and are a frequent reason for preventing the return of internally displaced persons and refugees to their homes [4]. Landmines remain a risk for decades after being deployed and