Yesterday, the areas of the Antonio Ricaurte explosives factory that will be used as a technical and scientific testing ground for humanitarian demining in Colombia were presented.
On the outskirts of Bogotá, a pioneering complex that combines research and training to train the military and civilians who will clean Colombian soil of anti-personnel mines is preparing to open its doors, a project defined by those responsible as a kind of "university."
There are 18 hectares located in the Antonio Ricaurte explosives factory, in the town of Sibaté, where the details of the officially baptized "technical and scientific testing ground for humanitarian demining in Colombia" are being finalized, a task that has been prioritized in the country after the agreement reached with the FARC to eliminate these devices.
In fact, this initiative is the result of that push, which will try to meet the ambitious goal imposed by the Government of ridding the country of all explosive devices by 2025.
To advance this objective, the Scientific and Technical Committee for humanitarian demining was formed, which illuminates this innovative complex with the idea of it becoming a bank for scientific projects and an experiment center.
The Committee is made up of representatives of four Colombian universities (Nacional, Javeriana, Los Andes and Militar Nueva Granada), National Natural Parks of Colombia and the Military Industry of Colombia (Indumil), who will meet at least once a week to analyze new ways to eliminate mines.
It is not known how many of these devices are planted in Colombia, where according to Government estimates 688 municipalities are affected, but what is known is that 11,139 people have been killed or injured by their detonation in the last 25 years.
Precisely one of those survivors co-directs the innovative project. It is Captain Óscar Buitrago Rueda, leader of the humanitarian demining project for the Colombian military industry, who keeps his heartfelt experience in mind when setting the objectives of the new center.
"The strong point is to develop techniques aimed at demining without affecting the community and to develop scientific products from the universities of all Colombians who wish to make and develop their own product to demine the country," he told the Efe news agency.
Currently, to eliminate mines they must be detonated "in situ", a task that can cause noise of up to 280 decibels that generate concern in fearful rural communities after suffering harassment and combat between soldiers and guerrillas too close to their homes.
Among the alternatives studied at this center, propellant stands out, a chemical that generates high temperatures and destroys the mine without detonating it, almost melting it, and the use of microorganisms that feed on the material from which the artifacts are made.
This is explained by the head of the explosives factory's engineering group, Carlos Enrique Sarmiento, who comments that in both cases there is "significant progress" that allows us to hope that at least the propellant will be developed by the end of the year.
Carrying it out will be the task of the electronic laboratory area, one of the sections of the enormous complex that includes a soil study center to which different areas of Colombia where anti-personnel mines have been found will be brought, something essential if one takes into account that The orography is the first obstacle to finding them.
For this reason, the training includes an important "recreation" (it occupies almost 99 % of the total facilities) of the jungle terrain where the armed groups plant the explosives, a labyrinth of bushes and complex slopes in which the trainees must look for signs of anti-personnel mines.
Another part of the complex is dedicated to training animals to track explosives, in which the presence of rodents is not ruled out to face the new challenges of a weapon that has not stopped evolving.
The testing field will be fully functional by the end of the year for all types of technical and scientific tests of anti-personnel mine devices; As Captain Buitrago indicates, "it can be said that this is the anti-personnel mine university in the country."
Source: EFE News Agency / Corporate Communications-INDUMIL.
