Aki Ra's Landmine Museum

 

Many parts of the world including Cambodia have been saturated with landmines. There are still 5 million landmines and other explosives that have not been cleared in Cambodia. During the years of conflict the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese army planted landmines to stop the advancement of the opposing army. Many years later landmines were found in Cambodia. Today children are victims of the leftover landmines. They step on them in fields and often lose limbs, their eyesight or their lives. 

Aki Ra is the founder of the landmine museum. As a child, Aki Ra lost his parents to war and was forced to plant landmines for the Khmer Rouge. I was very fortunate to meet him at the museum. He explained to me that now as an adult he clears landmines.  He first uses a metal detector to locate the landmine.  Once he finds them,  Aki Ra has two methods of disarming them.  His first method is to explode them by sending electricity through a 80 foot cable .  His other method is to carefully take out the TNT from the landmine.  Both methods were his own invention. I learned that each one was dangerous and risky. 

I learned a lot at the landmine museum. Two items that stood out to me were the cage filled with landmines and the posters. The cage was filled up with hundreds of landmines that he had disabled. The posters were interesting to read because they were stories of  landmines survivors.  Many of these children were injured but wanted to tell their story and prevent others from getting injured.