Sunday, February 17, 2019

the rats are coming to yemen but the nytimes

recently fails to mention that rats are a better method thsn those apparently being used in yeme?

Home

A mountain of land mines that Yemeni soldiers said they collected over the past two months. The mines have stymied the Saudi-led advance.CreditCreditTyler Hicks/The New York Times

Land Mines Block Saudi-Led Assault in Yemen, Killing Civilians

Hundreds of thousands of land mines have stymied the Saudi-led forces in Yemen, and could pose a danger to civilians for decades to come.

By David D. Kirkpatrick

Feb. 17, 2019

NEHIM, Yemen — Desperate to break through enemy lines, the Saudi-backed forces fighting in Yemen are sending untrained soldiers to clear minefields, sometimes using only their bayonets.

“I removed two and the third one exploded,” said Sultan Hamad, a 39-year-old Yemeni soldier who lost a leg clearing mines on the front line near Marib, an ancient city in central Yemen. He was among more than a half dozen soldiers waiting at a clinic in Marib to be fitted for prosthetic limbs.

Nearly four years after Saudi Arabia plunged into Yemen’s civil war, Saudi and Yemeni commanders say that hundreds of thousands of unmarked land mines planted by their opponents, the Houthis, have emerged as perhaps their most formidable defense.

The hidden explosives, the commanders say, have helped keep the conflict close to a standstill despite the superior air power and other resources of the Saudi-led coalition.

For 20 years APOPO’s scent detection rats have been detecting landmines and tuberculosis. Learn more about our work and how you can help.

ADOPT A HERORAT

Join our HeroRATs in their life-saving adventures as they use their extraordinary sense of smell to sniff out deadly problems.

THE PROBLEM

Over 60 countries are contaminated with hidden landmines and other explosive remnants of war, that cause tragic accidents and hamper communities from developing their productive land.

Meanwhile, slow and inaccurate detection methods make tuberculosis the world’s most deadly infectious disease. 10 million new people contract TB every year, 3 million go undiagnosed, and 1.8 million die from the disease.

THE SOLUTION

The APOPO scent detection rats, nicknamed 'HeroRATs', help to rid the world of landmines and tuberculosis –returning safe land back to communities for development, and freeing people from serious illness so they can get back on their feet.