London (AFP)
Magawa, a giant African rat who saves lives by detecting landmines in Cambodia, was awarded a gold medal on Friday by the British animal welfare association PDSA, which annually rewards an animal for its bravery.
Formed by the Belgian association Apopo, Magawa can be proud, at almost 6 years old, of having already discovered 39 anti-personnel mines and 28 remnants of war explosives during his "career", underlined PDSA.
His work has cleared nearly 141,000 square meters of land, the equivalent of 20 football fields.
His "bravery and devotion to duty" was recognized by the British association, which awarded him a miniature version of his gold medal, considered the animal equivalent of the George Cross (George Cross) , highest honor bestowed on civilians.
"Receiving this medal is a great honor for us," Christophe Cox, CEO of Apopo, told UK news agency PA.
It "will draw the world's attention to the problem of anti-personnel mines."
To detect tuberculosis or to clear land, the Belgian NGO relies on rats, "intelligent" animals with a particular talent for repetitive tasks when they are rewarded and whose small size protects them from explosions.
For a year, the association trains these large rodents in Tanzania, their country of origin, to detect TNT contained in explosives and teaches them to scratch on the earth to signal its presence to the humans who work with them.
This technique, which is not based on the presence of scrap metal, allows you to work much faster than with a metal detector.
From his height of 70 cm, Magawa can thus comb the equivalent of a tennis court in 30 minutes, a task that would take up to four days for a human equipped with a metal detector.
Apopo has already neutralized more than 83,000 anti-personnel mines.
According to PDSA, between 4 and 6 million mines were laid in Cambodia from 1975 to 1998, killing more than 64,000.
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