Magawa: The Rat Who Cleared a Million Square Feet of Landmines
Cambodia has a landmine problem that has lasted longer than most people realize. Since the 1970s, an estimated four to six million landmines were buried across the country, and around three million of those are still in the ground today. They have caused over 64,000 casualties. Clearing them is slow, dangerous work — until a rat named Magawa changed the math.
A Different Kind of Hero
Magawa was an African giant pouched rat, bred and trained by APOPO, a Belgian nonprofit that has spent decades developing rats as landmine detectors. The program works because giant pouched rats have a sense of smell strong enough to locate buried explosives, and they are light enough that they do not trigger the mines while searching. A single rat can sweep an area the size of a tennis court in 20 minutes. The same search with a metal detector and a human takes up to four days.
Magawa was assigned to Siem Reap, Cambodia in 2016, where he was paired with his handler Malen. Over the next five years, he found 39 landmines and 28 items of unexploded ordnance. He cleared over 1.5 million square feet of land. That is more than any other rat in APOPO's history.
The Gold Medal
In September 2020, Magawa received the PDSA Gold Medal, awarded by the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals in the UK for acts of animal bravery and devotion. He was the 30th recipient of the medal, and the first non-dog ever to receive it. The citation described his work as life-saving devotion to duty. The medal was fitted around his tiny harness at a ceremony that drew international attention. Most people had no idea rats were being used for this work. Magawa made sure they found out.
Retirement and Legacy
Magawa retired in January 2021 at age seven, showing signs of slowing down after years of daily work in the field. He lived out his remaining months in comfort before dying in May 2022 at age eight. For a giant pouched rat, eight years is a full life.
His legacy did not stop there. In April 2026, a seven-foot stone statue of Magawa was unveiled in Cambodia, honoring him alongside the work APOPO continues to do. Rats from his program are still working in Cambodia, Angola, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique, clearing land so communities can farm, build, and move freely through areas that were dangerous for decades.
What Made Magawa Different
Magawa was not the only rat in APOPO's program, and he was not the only one who found mines. What set him apart was consistency. Over five years, in difficult conditions, working through heat and terrain that makes the job slow and unpredictable, he kept working. His handlers described him as calm, focused, and reliable — traits that made him the most productive rat the program had ever produced. He weighed just over a kilogram. The devices he found weighed far more, and the lives they could have taken were beyond counting.
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Sources
- APOPO HeroRAT Program — Official overview including training methodology, field statistics from Cambodia, and Magawa's clearance records of 39 landmines and 28 unexploded ordnance items
- PDSA Gold Medal — Magawa — Full PDSA Gold Medal award citation noting his being the first non-dog ever to receive the medal
- BBC News — Landmine-sniffing rat Magawa awarded gold medal — Coverage of the September 2020 ceremony and his five-year field record
- BBC News — Magawa, hero rat who sniffed out landmines, dies — Report on Magawa's death in May 2022 at age eight following his January 2021 retirement
- UN Mine Action Service — Cambodia Program — UN documentation on Cambodia's landmine crisis and national clearance program
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