Colombia: In Colombia, Land Mines Are Cleared, Inch by Inch

Apr 19, 2015 | William Neuman, New York Times
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Luvin Mejía kneels on the ground, wearing a heavy Kevlar vest and pants, a thick clear plastic shield over his face. It can take him an hour to move forward a single foot as he delicately clears brush from a long-abandoned mountain trail and passes a metal detector over each spot, the device’s high-pitched whine mixing with the whir of insects. Mr. Mejía is part of an army battalion that searches for land mines in areas once contested by guerrilla fighters in Colombia, a country with one of the highest numbers of land mine victims in the world.