Colombian military uses latest technology to disarm landmines

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By CGTN's Michelle Begue

Colombia’s military is employing cutting-edge technology to disarm and guard against unexploded landmines scattered across the country.

The South American nation has the second-highest number of landmines in the world behind Afghanistan, with more than 70 people killed in landmine explosions in Colombia in 2016.

Tolemaida is home to a military air base where soldiers are testing the latest technology to disarm landmines. One of the technologies in development is an anti-landmine boot, which weighs one kilo and promises to minimize the damage from a landmine.

Officials point out that it can cost less than one dollar to create a landmine versus 100 dollars to deactivate just one of them.

Plastic bottles and syringes are some of the materials used by armed groups to create landmines. Soldiers explain that in the past seven years, landmine manufacturers stopped using metal to make the mines harder to detect. That is why new detectors have been created to find the mines through variations in the density of the country’s terrain.

Thousands of Colombian soldiers are working non-stop to de-mine former guerrilla territories. In 2016, they destroyed nearly 160 explosive artifacts and cleared mines from around 261,000 square meters of land.

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