Magawa, Cambodia’s landmine-sniffing “Hero Rat”
According to APOPO, (a Belgian charity group that trains animals to find unexploded ordnance) during his five-year tenure, he cleared more than 225,000 square meters of land (about 31 football fields) and unearthed 71 landmines and 38 unexploded munitions.
Magawa was born and raised at the Tanzania’s Sokoine University of Agriculture, where he honed his impressive nose for explosives.
He relocated to Siem Reap, Cambodia, at the age of three and began working.
Cambodia has one of the highest rates of mine amputees per capita in the world. Landmine blasts have rendered more than 40,000 individuals in the country incapacitated.
He was also the first rat to receive the PDSA Gold Medal, the animal equivalent of the George Cross, in the United Kingdom.
Magawa died on January 8, 2022.
