The Charity
Mines Advisory Group (MAG) is a neutral and impartial humanitarian organisation that clears the remnants of conflict for the benefit of communities worldwide.
Saving lives and limbs...
MAG works in current and former conflict zones, to reduce the threat of death and injury from remnants of conflict. These include anti-personnel and anti-vehicle landmines, as well as rockets, missiles, mortars, grenades, ammunition, small arms and light weapons.
They don’t just carry out plain landmine or bomb clearance – some of their projects aren’t even about landmines. They educate people living, working and travelling through contaminated areas, to minimise the risks of them, their friends and families being killed or maimed.
...and building futures...
They focus on the many millions of people who benefit from their work. They release reclaimed safe land back to the local population, enabling recovery and assisting the development of affected populations.
More than this, they tackle poverty by training and employing staff from the local populations, in order to build a robust and sustainable national workforce. More than 90 percent of their 2,300+ staff around the world, are natives of the countries in which they work.
...worldwide
MAG has worked in 35 countries since 1989 and currently has operations in 17 countries.
MAG are heavily involved with operations in S.E Asia. Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam have all been badly affected by unexploded ordnance, a legacy from the Vietnam conflict.
My route will pass through both Laos, before entering Vietnam in the area of the former Demilitarised Zone (DMZ). I hope to meet up with MAG representatives in one or both of these countries to see their life saving work first hand.
MAG Laos > Quick Facts
Lao PDR is the most bombed country in the world per capita. More than 1.3 million tonnes of ordnance was dropped on the country between 1964 and 1973. Up to 30 per cent of some types of ordnance failed to detonate. Unexploded ordnance (UXO) still contaminates the ground, affecting a quarter of all villages.
In 2008, MAG Lao PDR located and destroyed 98,061 items of UXO. 3,763,582 square metres of land were cleared. Sixty-five per cent of this land was for agriculture, with the remaining 35 per cent cleared for schools, access roads, bridges, irrigation canals and toilets or water supply. Some 45,000 people directly benefited from the work, with tens of thousands of indirect beneficiaries.
MAG Vietnam > Quick facts
Since operations commenced in 1999, MAG Vietnam has conducted mobile clearance operations in more than 1,300 villages, cleared more than seven million square metres of land for agriculture and community development, and removed and destroyed close to 150,000 landmines / UXO
Unexploded ordnance affects as much as 20 per cent of the total area of Vietnam.
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