Land mines in Puertego

Land mines in Puertego remain a large thorn in the countries side especially in the country's rural areas. The primary reason for the massive presence of land mines is the country's history of constant civil wars in which mine fields were placed in order to prevent or slow the crossing of enemy armies which has taken a very severe toll on the countries people with Puertego having one of the highest numbers of amputees per capita in the world. The Puertegan Commission for Demining (PCD) claims that there around 11 million mines in the country with this number primarily focused on the center of the country however with other pieces of unexploded ordnance such as artillery shells, cluster bombs, and bunker blasters included this number is estimated to run as high as 14 million.

Many of the mines were either imported from other countries or were improvised explosives due to manufacturing remaining low in Puertego for most of its history and in the country's various civil wars throughout its history all factions utilized land mines in virtually every civil war the countries ever had however a common obstacle in demining is that many who placed the mines kept no records of where they were placed and can't remember where they placed the mines. Often times the mines were placed with the sole intent to hard enemy soldiers however there have also been cases of them being used in order to protect an area such as the minefields placed around San Lina in various conflicts which have mostly been removed successfully in demining efforts.

Casuality Rates
According to statistics from the PCD Puertego has one of the highest causality rates in the world for mine victims with around 140 causalities every year with one third of the causalities being children and almost all male, of surviving landmine victims, 87% are males over 15 years old, with a mean age of 28 years. PCD statistics claim that only around 1 in 5 victims of land mines in Puertego arrive at a hospital within 6 hours of being injured with 12% having to travel for more than 3 days often without any kind of vehicle and relying on others for assistance before they reach a hospital. During 2025 Puertego saw a spike in land mine victims with the number of people killed by landmines nearly doubling from 19 to 44 with the latter being the average in almost all similar periods of recent Puertegan history however land mine related injuries declined by one third during that year as well. In 2019 there was an incident in San Lina where construction work was being done to build a road through a shanty town in San Lina and an unexploded cluster bomb was accidentally detonated in the center of the shanty town resulting in 82 deaths and 55 injuries.

Social Consequences
The high number of land mine victims being working age has a drastic impact on entire families due to them having a very diminished ability to work and help provide for the family. Social consequences of land mines have many social and economic problems attached which has caused heavy discontent in the public primarily due to the lack of proper healthcare and social safety nets to assist victims and their families being exposed with Puertego not having any form of disability benefits for those affected by land mines. In rural Puertegan communities there is a heavy paranoia about landmines with the simple suspicion of land mines being in an area often enough to influence the behavior of the public with farmers refusing to expand their farms out to land suspected of having land mines even knowing doing so could cost them heavily in their revenue.

Socioeconomic Consequences
In a 2030 survey the PCD estimated that 25% of rural villages in Puertego are still contaminated with land mines and or other unexploded ordnance with this having large adverse socioeconomic results for the communities affected. These adverse impacts included restrictions on access to agricultural land, pastureland, forests, and water resources, with tens of thousands up to hundreds of thousands of families being affected by each to varying degrees. In Puertego it has been found that families headed by someone with a permanent disability from a land mine or war possess significantly much less wealth than those that don't with the poverty rates for families headed by someone with a land mine related disability being almost 4 times higher than those without.

Demining efforts
In Puertego there are currently 8 active demining groups operating with most being NGO charity organizations who had a special law passed for them in 2025 making them pay no taxes to the government in order to free up more capital for demining efforts. Finding the location of the mines with no witness or map record is a very difficult task that needs very specific tools, and demands a lot of time, and trained staff, and therefore also a lot of investment. Most remaining mines are found in the countries central regions however there are still pockets of mines found in Puertego's eastern regions. Current government funding for demining efforts are worth $120 million with it being estimated Puertego will need another 15-20 years to clear out all the mines in the country's borders assuming funding stays where it is currently.

Foreign efforts
On September 13, 2031, Burgundie and Puertego announced an agreement for the Army of Burgundie to send Combat Engineer companies to support the demining effort and provide demining equipment to and train with the 8 demining groups active in Puertego for a period of 5 years. Puertegoan officials were especially excited that the Burgogniacs were bringing mine-detection equipment (the TerreRaubeuer and heavy mine demolition vehicles and ordinance to expedite the effort like the Cross Trucking Company  910MCV,  and the Arcerion made  demining vehicles.

The agreement stipulated that the Army of Burgundie's I Infantry Tacticale would send two Combat Engineer companies to Puertego for 6-month rotations, for a 5-year period. These combat engineer companies will support the demining effort and provide demining equipment to and train with the 8 demining groups active in Puertego. This support would be provided at no cost to the Puertegoans and written off as humanitarian aid and as training and exercise for the troops of the Army of Burgundie.