David Rengel

It is difficult to quantify the damage caused by the landmines from forgotten conflicts, which continue to occur in Africa. The experts are reluctant to give statistics, but it is safe to say that  the continual wars have turned it into one of the continents with the most anti-personnel landmines. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines says that since 1999 these devices were responsible for 73.576 deaths, without counting the amputees or those who lost body parts when a mine exploded. In a year, the recorded number hovers around 5,426 victims, and onefifth (1/5) of them occur in Africa. On a continent where resources are scarce, Bart Weetjens the brains behind APOPO (dutch acronym means "Product Development for Detection of Anti-Personnel Landmines" ) thought that the sense of smell of rats could be used for the task of mine clearing, but he had to get people not laugh at his plan. "I thought it was a strange idea", said Havard Bach. You come across a lot of silly ideas that lead to nothing when you work in this industry". But the study that he conducted only made him sing the praises of the advantages of rats.