Cambodia's new batch of landmine-sniffing rats
Cambodia has deployed its next generation of landmine-sniffing rats.
They're part of the de-mining operation in a country plagued by unexploded weapons.
Twenty African giant pouched rats were recently imported from Tanzania for the job and are undergoing intense training.
This woman is a rat-handler.
"Before we worked with the rats we didn't know how important their job was. But once I worked with them, I realized that the rats are wonderful animals because of their sense of smell, which humans lack, as they give us 100% accurate results from their performance."
The new batch of rodents replaces a recently retired group that included Magawa, the rat who found 71 landmines and 28 unexploded ordinances during his five-year career, according to the non-profit APOPO.
Magawa even received a gold medal last year from a British veterinary charity for his “life-saving bravery and devotion to duty".
After decades of civil war, Cambodia is one the most heavily landmined countries in the world.
It has more than 621 square miles of land still contaminated.
It also has among the highest number of amputees per capita, with more than 40,000 people having lost limbs to explosives.
