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In the foreground, a PG-9 rocket, with assorted mortar bombs lined up behind it.
Sean Moorhouse / MAG
Situated in the Chadian portion of the Sahara Desert, Kouba Olanga is the last water point for at least 300 kilometres in all directions. This makes it a vital - in the strictest sense of the word - stopping-off point for the countless camel trains making their way across this part of the Sahara.
Kouba Olanga was also the sight of a major battle in 1984, during a largely unnoticed war between Libya and Chad.
Because of this. the town and its surroundings were littered with the explosive residue of war prior to MAG's arrival, ranging in size from large artillery rockets to finger-sized fuses just big enough to blow off a human hand.
On 6 May, two MAG teams, aided by information collected from the local population, began clearing the dangerous items.
Starting from within the town and gradually working outwards, they removed and safely destroyed a total of 1,316 items of explosive ordnance, two anti-tank mines and 1,438 potentially fatal heavy machine gun rounds.
The area cleared included a key water point outside the town and a battlefield site constantly used by the mostly nomadic population of 2,000 to 3,000 people.
As far as the local population is aware, MAG is the only non-governmental organisation to have ever worked in Kouba Olanga.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
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