Winona State University’s United Nations club brought awareness of landmines to students through field simulations and guest speakers on campus Thursday.

Yogesh Grover, U.N. club advisor, said the club tries to spread awareness and educate students about countries. The club did this Thursday through balloons, which represented countries with landmines, and posters that showed the effects of landmines. During the simulation, a balloon was popped every 22 minutes representing each person killed or injured by a landmine.

“The landmines cause so much death and suffering to innocent people,” Grover said.

Eileen Campbell from the United States Campaign spoke to students about landmines and what they could do to get involved with the ban.

She referred to the landmines as “killers without brains,” meaning the landmines are indiscriminate killers that cannot distinguish between innocent civilians and soldiers of war. Campbell said there are currently about 80 to 100 million landmines around the world, and everyday they kill an estimated 72 people. One-third of the victims are children who mistake the mines as toys or don’t realize they are playing in a minefield. Campbell called these fields “gardens of death.”

“The government isn’t moving fast enough to ban the landmines,” Campbell said.

John Harmon from the Minnesota Campaign to Ban Landmines said landmines are a international problem and also wants students to write officials and tell them the United States should ban the indiscriminate killers. Harmon wants students to decide whether to choose military or humanitarian necessity.

Harmon said the campaign will provide money to deactivate the landmines and remove them. He said it takes only $3 to produce a landmine but thousands to remove them.

The United States has yet to sign the Landmine Ban Treaty, according to Campbell, and she said the campaign needs energy from students.