(AFP) - Thirty-seven years ago, Argentine soldiers invaded
the Falkland Islands, planting thousands of mines. British troops liberated the
locals then -- and a few dozen Zimbabweans keep them safe now.
"There are over 100 minefields flung all across the
Falkland Islands from Fox Bay, Port Howard, Goose Green, Fizroy, Stanley area,
Longden, all over the place," said John Hare, the technical director of
SafeLane Global, which has been contracted by the British Foreign and
Commonwealth Office to clear the mines.
The Argentine army laid around 25,000 mines during their
74-day occupation of the remote British overseas territory in the South
Atlantic. For the past decade, expert Zimbabwean deminers have been charged
with clearing the fields.
When the war ended in 1982, the Argentines handed over
their records.
Since then, demining teams have undertaken the painstaking
process of trawling through the documents, sourcing background information from
locals and probing into minefields for evidence of potential explosives.
Only once that was done did the deminers start clearing the
explosive devices.
"The Zimbabwean deminers are experts in this job.
We've been doing this for quite a long time, most of us are in our 21st year
doing this job," Michael Madziva, the site supervisor, told AFP about his
100-strong team.
Back in 1999 a company called Bactec, which was one of
several to later merge into SafeLane Global, was contracted to clear two
million mines along the border between Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
Local Zimbabweans were recruited and trained, and they have
since become world-renowned for their expertise.
"Since 2015, I've had basically the same group of
deminers," said Hare, who used to be a bomb disposal expert with the Royal
Engineers.
"They're... a really great group of guys to work
with."
The Zimbabwean experts have been deployed all over the
world -- including to Afghanistan, Iraq, South Sudan, Eritrea, Croatia and
Lebanon -- to clear mines following devastating conflicts.
"What made them good deminers is they love their
job," added Madziva.
There were originally 122 areas to clear in the Falklands,
but there are only 11 to 12 left. The project, which began in 2009, is expected
to finish by the end of next year, according to Guy Marot, who heads the
Falkland Islands Demining Service Program.
The group is currently working on a beach close to the
Falklands capital Stanley, where Argentina expected British troops to land.
Instead, they arrived on the other side of the East Falkland island at San
Carlos.
Once located by a huge digger that sifts through the sand,
the mines are either disarmed on the spot and then transferred to a quarry to
be burnt, or those that are too dangerous to move are destroyed on the spot by
explosives.
Even though it's a long way from home, some deminers went
on to settle in the Falklands.
Jonas Muza, 41, quit demining and moved to the Falklands in
2015. His wife Anna joined him a year later, and he's expecting to bring his
three daughters over next year.
"I liked it before even I came here. I liked the place
because of the weather," Muza told AFP.
"I was thrilled to see snow for the first time." Anna, who works as a kitchen assistant in the deminers'
group accommodation, wasn't quite so enamored.
"It's very cold here," she said, smiling. "I
was shocked."
Deminers work in the Falklands from September to June, but
Muza wanted employment all year round, so he found work fitting tires instead.
"In demining, when the contract finishes, it's obvious
you are unemployed until another job comes your way. I didn't like that. I
wanted constant income so I can sustain my family," said Muza.
Although his children -- Nathalie, 17, Keisha, 11, and
five-year-old Kiara -- have been enrolled in school for the next year, Muza
doesn't see the Falklands as a permanent home.
He's building a nine-room house in Zimbabwe.
"I will go back some point in the future," he
said. "Like they say, home calls you. East, west, south: home is
home."
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