A large statue of a small national hero was unveiled this week in Cambodia
Seven-feet tall and hand-carved from stone, the statue commemorates the life, and lives saved, by a real rat.
Magawa was an African giant pouched rat. He sniffed out more than 100 land mines as a 'heroRAT' working for Apopo, a Belgian non-profit group that's training animals to help clear minefields left from the wars of the 1970s and 1980s.
In some ways, Cambodia's wars have never quite ended. According to the UK-based charity Halo Trust, since 1979, land mines buried during the Khmer Rouge era and the Vietnamese occupation have killed more than 18,000 people, and injured more than 45,000.
Rats are trained and deployed to locate land mines because they have superb and specific qualifications. They have a powerful sense of smell, which can detect chemical compounds in explosives, and they are not distracted by mere scrap metal. And rats don't weigh much, so they don't set off land mines. Magawa was just three pounds. Rats are also highly intelligent.
"Magawa was one of the best rats we've ever had," Michael Raine, who works for Apopo in Cambodia, told the Washington Post. "Magawa was calm and focused. He was curious, very composed, and quick at work. He knew his job."
Over his five-year career, Magawa helped clear about 1.5 million square feet, one of Apopo's most successful 'HeroRATS'.
I have done stories following Cambodian de-miners. It can be extraordinary and moving to see rats sniff and scratch at a land mine that might have been buried 50 years ago, alerting their handlers, who reward them with a small treat, like bananas or peanuts. The landmines are then safely demolished.
When Magawa retired in 2021, at the old rat age of eight, he apparently helped younger rats develop detection skills. Rats can learn by observing other rats. He died peacefully the next year.
Apopo says more than six million land mines may still be buried in the soil of Cambodia.
Magawa helped Cambodians personify a partnership of rats and humans that may continue to save lives.
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