Caquetá. Soldiers of the Battalion of Humanitarian Demining Engineers No. 1, saved the lives of approximately 80 families in the rural area of the Department of Caquetá, by destroying eight explosive devices.
The mine clearance specialists involved in the municipalities of Puerto Rico and Florence found five antipersonnel mines, two unexploded ordnance and an explosive device, using the manual demining technique.
In different inspections in the Altamira district of the municipality of Puerto Rico, the military found and destroyed four antipersonnel mines on an inter-city road.
The deadly traps that apparently had been in place for more than three years, besides hindering the transit of the population, made it difficult to plant corn, plantain and milk production. Thanks to the operation of the mine clearance specialists, 18 families are benefited.
Meanwhile, in the search for new suspicions and presenting with the community in general, the military arrived at the village of El Pará in the municipality of Florencia, where a villager said that while fumigating the paddocks, he showed a strange object; this is how at the moment of inspecting the place, one ammunition was found without exploding and another one at 60 meters. Later an improvised explosive device was on a road that connects four lanes of the same municipality. With the destruction of these threats, 62 families are favored who will be able to continue with their livestock and agriculture activities.
Consecutively in that municipality, the soldiers found an antipersonnel mine in the middle of two leafy trees, of the hamlet Montecristo. This explosive device was around four years in the sector, preventing the passage of workers from several farms.
So far this year, more than 54 thousand square meters of the Department of Caquetá have been cleared of the suspicion of antipersonnel mines, through the humanitarian demining carried out by the National Army.
Source: Military Engineers Command - National Army.
