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Magawa has won a gold medal for detecting mines in Cambodia
An African giant rat has been awarded a prestigious gold medal for its work in detecting landmines.
Magawa has detected 39 landmines and 28 unexploded ordnance in his career.
The UK veterinary charity PDSA has awarded him its Gold Medal for “devotion to life-saving duty in locating and clearing deadly landmines in Cambodia”.
There are believed to be up to six million landmines in the Southeast Asian country.
PDSA’s gold medal is inscribed with the words “For animal gallantry or devotion to duty.” Of the 30 animals that received the award, Magawa is the first rat.
The seven-year-old rodent was trained by the Belgian-registered charity Apopo, which is based in Tanzania and has been breeding the animals, known as HeroRATs, to detect landmines and tuberculosis since the 1990s. The animals are certified after one year of training.
“Receiving this medal is truly an honor for us,” Apopo CEO Christophe Cox told the Press Association news agency. “But it is also important for the people of Cambodia and for all the people around the world who suffer from landmines.”
On Friday PDSA will broadcast the Magawa awards ceremony on its website.
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According to Apopo, Magawa, born and raised in Tanzania, weighs 1.2 kg (2.6 pounds) and is 70 cm (28 inches) long. While it is much larger than many other species of rats, Magawa is still small and light enough that it won’t set off mines if you walk on them.
Rats are trained to detect a chemical compound within explosives, which means they ignore scrap and can search for mines more quickly. Once they find an explosive, they scrape the top off to alert their human co-workers.
Magawa is able to search a field the size of a tennis court in just 20 minutes, something Apopo says would take a person with a metal detector between one and four days.
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Rats need a year of training before they become certified landmine detectors, known as HeroRATs.
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Magawa and his colleagues are working with the Cambodia Mine Action Center to detect unexploded ordnance in the country.
He works only half an hour a day in the mornings and is nearing retirement age, but PDSA CEO Jan McLoughlin said his work with Apopo was “truly unique and exceptional.”
“Magawa’s work saves and directly changes the lives of men, women and children who are affected by these landmines,” he told the Press Association. “Every discovery he makes reduces the risk of injury or death to the local population.”
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According to the demining NGO HALO Trust, Cambodia has recorded more than 64,000 casualties and some 25,000 amputees due to landmines since 1979. Many were laid during the country’s civil war in the 1970s and 1980s.
In January 2020, US President Donald Trump lifted restrictions on the use of landmines in the United States, reversing a ban imposed by President Barack Obama in 2014.
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