Landmine-awareness training at a pagoda in Cambodia. With over 25,000 amputees, Cambodia has the world's highest per-capita ratio of landmine survivors. Most victims come from rural areas where mines were laid from the late 1970s to the 1990s. Even as late as 2013 at least six million viable landmines remained in the ground and large areas, especially in the northwest, had not been cleared. ©1996
Danger! Don't Touch! -- in Takeo province, Cambodia, children look at a poster with cartoons showing the dangers of buried landmines. Mines remain hidden and lethal for decades. They stay behind to kill and maim long after the conflict ends and the soldiers have gone. Civilians are the most frequent casualties. ©1996
Eighty percent of Cambodians live and labor in rural areas, most of them on farms. Losing a limb to a landmine explosion means losing one's livelihood; an amputee faces destitution or a life of dependence. But for many victims Jesuit Services (Cambodia) offers vocational training in weaving and sewing, electronics, cabinetmaking, welding, sculpture, and wheel chair construction. The training center, called Banteay Prieb, is located 25 kilometers west of Phnom Penh. © 1996
These wheelchairs are designed and built by landmine survivors at Banteay Prieb's workshops, and each one is made to suit the measurements and disabilities of its intended owner. About 1,000 wheelchairs are produced each year. © 1996
The sturdy and stable tricycle design is adapted to negotiating Cambodia's rough rural roads and tracks. © 1996
For this former farmer traditional wood sculpture offers a new beginning as an artisan. The sculpture course at Banteay Prieb lasts about two years. The intricate carvings are sent to customers around the world. Some are sold to tourists at a shop in downtown Phnom Penh. © 1996
Tun Channareth (at left with his friend Truk) a landmine survivor from Cambodia, at the United Nations in Geneva in 1996. They were there to help efforts by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines to add a landmines ban to the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. This did not happen, but campaigners at the meeting revised their tactics, and less than two years later 122 countries (161 now) signed a landmine ban treaty at Ottawa.© 1996
In Geneva for a meeting at the United Nations in 1996, Syed Aqa demonstrates the use of a needle probe to find buried anti-personnel mines. Syed was Director of the Mine Clearance Agency of Afghanistan and a member of the Steering Committee of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Afghanistan, like Cambodia, Angola, and Mozambique, was one of the most heavily mined countries in the world. © 1996
Thirty years of civil war in Mozambique ended in 1992 but left more than 10,000 landmine casualties. Throughout the country -- one of Africa's poorest -- victims had almost no access to medical services. In the 1990s only Maputo's Central Hospital could provide orthopedic rehabilitation. Here a technician makes a plaster mold of the stump, the first step in fashioning a prosthetic leg. © 1997
Each prosthesis is made by hand in the hospital's orthopedic workshops. © 1997
Preparing the mold. This photo was taken in 1997. Today, thanks to efforts by the National Demining Institute, the Halo Trust, and Norwegian People's Aid, Mozambique's landmines have been almost entirely cleared, but many amputees remain and the country is poor. There are almost no functioning medical, social, and psychological assistance programs for them. In 2012, for example, the Central Hospital in Maputo lacked raw materials and was unable to manufacture or repair any prostheses. © 1997
The orthopedic exercise room at Maputo's Central Hospital in Mozambique. Carlos Fabião Pelembe, 37, is learning to walk again. © 1997
Before receiving his first artifical leg, Paolo Chichava's stump is exercised by a physiotherapist. © 1997
Until now Paolo Chichava has relied on his one leg and the two crutches that lie beneath the table. Carolina Ferrão, 34, watches. She lost both legs in a landmine accident. © 1997
The prosthesis is attached to Chichava's stump. © 1997
Paolo Chichava is 72 years old. Over the next few days the therapists will help him learn to manage without his crutches. © 1997
Progress! With just a single crutch Chichava tries walking on his new leg. Carlos Fabião Pelembe encourages him. © 1997
