We recently wrote a story about how wars are now being fought by kids and how this makes it less likely there will be peace. Now one Cambodian soldier, who became a soldier at age 3, is showing the new government where to find and dig up the land mines he planted.
Kate Thomas writes in the Independent that Aki Ra laid his first land mine when he was five years old, and the mine was so heavy, “I could barely lift it.” He was recruited in 1975 at age 3 by the Khmer Rouge guerrillas.
He says of the land mine: “It is one of many that I have come back to. I laid so many land mines during the conflict, I couldn’t count.” In 2005, there was a 14% rise in the number of deaths and injuries caused by land mines in Cambodia. At least Aki remembers where some of them are.
Art credit: freeimages.co.uk
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