On January 11, 2024, the official closing ceremony of the International Intensive Basic Mine Action Course (Phase II) was held at the Technical Institute of Mine Action of Cambodia. Students of the Sumy National Agrarian University received the international certification of deminers. The event took place with the participation of a representative of the Royal Government of Cambodia.
Student training under this program became possible within the framework of the international agreement “Development of anti-personnel mine detection products”, which the university signed in 2023 with the APOPO company. According to this agreement, students studying in the “Canine” educational program were to undergo demining training aimed at strengthening the capacity of participants in the use of detection dogs, the marking process and the use of mine detectors during demining operations. 13 foreign students took part in the training, including 10 from Ukraine (Sumy National Agrarian University), 2 from Colombia and 1 from Jordan.
APOPO (short for Anti-Persoonsmijnen Ontmijnende Product Ontwikkeling) is an officially registered Belgian NGO that trains Gambian hamster rats and dogs to find and detect anti-personnel mines. In the coming years, this company, together with the Sumy National Agrarian University, plans to further develop cooperation on the training of specialists in the field of demining, the training of detector dogs and the creation of the appropriate infrastructure.
For your information, in 2023 Ukraine entered the list of the most mined countries in the world. According to preliminary estimates, a third of the country is contaminated. The Kingdom of Cambodia has extensive experience in this field. Cambodian sappers are considered to be among the most experienced in the world. In 1998, the war that had lasted for almost thirty years ended in Cambodia. After the hostilities, a huge territory of the state remained mined, which created danger for the civilian population, especially in rural areas. Since then, Cambodian experts have destroyed a lot of ammunition and mines and today they are transferring this experience to Ukraine.
