Culture

Everyone Loves Magawa, The Hero Rat Given A Bravery Medal For Sniffing Out Landmines

Rats off to ya!

by Rebecca Shaw  27 September 2020
Magawa

Want more Junkee in your life? Sign up to our newsletter, and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook so you always know where to find us.

Everyone loves Magawa, an African giant pouched rat that has been given a bravery medal for his work sniffing out landmines. 

Rats largely have a bad reputation in the media. When a story breaks involving rats, it never paints the rat in a good light, and it’s almost never a story in celebration of a rat. The two exceptions are any story about Remy, the ‘Ratatouille’ rat, and of course, beloved pizza rat.

But now we have finally been given a new rat to celebrate. Magawa is a five-year-old giant African pouched rat, trained by charity APOPO to be able to detect landmines. And he has just been awarded the animal equivalent to Britain’s highest civilian award for bravery due to his stellar work.

The UK veterinary charity PDSA has presented Magawa with its Gold Medal for “life-saving devotion to duty, in the location and clearance of deadly landmines in Cambodia”.

According to APOPO, Magawa weighs 1.2kg and is 70cm long, which is ginormous for a rat, but means he is still small enough not to trigger the mines. He can search the search the area of a tennis court in under half an hour, something that would take a person with a metal detector several days to do.

Magawa has sniffed out 39 landmines and 28 unexploded munitions in his career, and has cleared 1.5 million square feet of land. This work is vital in a country like Cambodia, where millions of landmines were once laid, and have caused over 64 000 casualties.

Magawa is the first rat to receive a PDSA medal in the 77 years of the awards, and it’s about time. Rat equality! The award means many people are hearing about Magawa for the first time, and they absolutely love him.

Besides all of his bravery, and the importance and seriousness of his work, it is important to note HOW CUTE HE IS AND HIS LITTLE MEDAL ALSO IS SO CUTE.

Thank you to Magawa, the hero rat we deserve.