Reference :
V-P-CD-E-01963
Date :
03/11/2013
Caption :
Near the city of Kisangani, military campground. A mine-clearing expert is training with one of his three dogs. Soon he will support his deminer colleagues in Mukuwanyama.
Confidentiality level :
public
Publication restrictions :
publication without restrictions
Description :
The dogs are like my family", he says. Sniffeling for explosives is a game for the dogs. They are happy when they get a reward from him. Mine clearing is a very sensitive task. Get one dog unconcentrated and it soon becomes dangerous. "But I trust in my dogs as they can trust in me", adds the 31 years old mine-clearing expert. It is his fourth mission where he is working with dogs: before he has been in Iraq, South Sudan and Afghanistan. He was able to find with his four-leged-comrades roughly 50 mines. "It is an extremely intensive emotion to know we are helping to save lives."
In Mukuwanyama, between 1996 and 1997, an unknown number of landmines were laid during fightings. So far, six villagers stepped on landmines. Four of them died on the spot, close to their own houses.
A team of mine-clearing experts has now the task to clear a 30.000 square meters area. So far eight mines have been deleted by Handicap International deminers and 1813 square meters are now safe again. From the beginning of 2014 a dog unit (with 3 dogs and one dogleader) and a special machine should support the deminers in Mukuwanyama. Besides mines, the Handicap International deminers team also found ammunition, hand grenades and mortar grenades.
Original material :
digital
Resolution :
4256x2832
Orientation :
landscape
Colour/B&W :
colour
