Posted on Jun 12, 2022
PHOTOS: Angola's all-female demining teams blow up landmines — and gender stereotypes
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https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/06/12/ [login to see] /photos-angolas-all-female-demining-teams-blow-up-landmines-and-gender-stereotype
Clad in sky-blue kevlar body armor with a thick protective visor over her face, 22-year-old Catarina Sanhala inches slowly forward, swinging her handheld metal detector slowly back and forth as she goes. The ground is steep and rocky and she moves with careful, deliberate steps. Falling could have consequences far beyond bruised knees or twisted ankles.
A year ago, Sanhala was enjoying a successful career as a professional handball player representing her hometown of Lobito, a port city in western Angola. That life now feels a long way off. Today, she is part of a highly trained all-female demining squad working to rid her country of deadly anti-personnel and anti-tank mines while at the same time challenging traditional notions of gender roles in this southern African nation.
"It's a very different life," says Sanhala, who works for the HALO Trust, a British nonprofit spearheading the fight against landmines in Angola. "But I wanted a challenge." She now spends most of her time living in a remote camp deep in the bush with around two dozen fellow deminers working six days a week to clear the area of mines.
Clad in sky-blue kevlar body armor with a thick protective visor over her face, 22-year-old Catarina Sanhala inches slowly forward, swinging her handheld metal detector slowly back and forth as she goes. The ground is steep and rocky and she moves with careful, deliberate steps. Falling could have consequences far beyond bruised knees or twisted ankles.
A year ago, Sanhala was enjoying a successful career as a professional handball player representing her hometown of Lobito, a port city in western Angola. That life now feels a long way off. Today, she is part of a highly trained all-female demining squad working to rid her country of deadly anti-personnel and anti-tank mines while at the same time challenging traditional notions of gender roles in this southern African nation.
"It's a very different life," says Sanhala, who works for the HALO Trust, a British nonprofit spearheading the fight against landmines in Angola. "But I wanted a challenge." She now spends most of her time living in a remote camp deep in the bush with around two dozen fellow deminers working six days a week to clear the area of mines.
PHOTOS: Angola's all-female demining teams blow up landmines — and gender stereotypes
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Posted 2 y ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."Then she surrounds the mine with sandbags before preparing an explosive charge which she lays down gently along its rusting, cast iron body. Next, she lays an electric fuse and retreats to a safe distance. Moments later, there is a boom and a cloud of dust and earth rises briefly above the scrub before disappearing in the wind.
One mine at a time, the team is chipping away at a total number that once seemed insurmountable. There are still thought to be hundreds of thousands of mines across the country to be cleared, yet every month new swathes of land are being made safe.
In the south of the country, a $60 million injection of demining funds from the Angolan government has raised hopes that Cuando Cubango province, scene of some of the heaviest fighting during the civil war, could be made mine-free in the next few years. Huambo province, once one of the most densely mined parts of the country, was finally cleared of its last minefields in 2021. Now HALO hopes that, by the end of 2023, Benguela province, where minefield BG262 is located, may follow suit."
..."Then she surrounds the mine with sandbags before preparing an explosive charge which she lays down gently along its rusting, cast iron body. Next, she lays an electric fuse and retreats to a safe distance. Moments later, there is a boom and a cloud of dust and earth rises briefly above the scrub before disappearing in the wind.
One mine at a time, the team is chipping away at a total number that once seemed insurmountable. There are still thought to be hundreds of thousands of mines across the country to be cleared, yet every month new swathes of land are being made safe.
In the south of the country, a $60 million injection of demining funds from the Angolan government has raised hopes that Cuando Cubango province, scene of some of the heaviest fighting during the civil war, could be made mine-free in the next few years. Huambo province, once one of the most densely mined parts of the country, was finally cleared of its last minefields in 2021. Now HALO hopes that, by the end of 2023, Benguela province, where minefield BG262 is located, may follow suit."
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