Aki Ra

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Aki Ra
Aki Ra
Born	unknown c.1973 Siem Reap, Cambodia
Occupation	Landmine campaigner, museum curator
Spouse	Hourt
Children	Amatak, Mine

Child dressed up as a Khmer Rouge soldier, Land Mine Museum

Aki Ra is a former Khmer Rouge conscripted child soldier who worked as a deminer and museum curator in Siem Reap, Cambodia. He and his wife Hourt have brought home nearly 20 children who have lived through a landmine accident. They provide these children with an education and family atmosphere. From 1993 to 2007, Aki Ra removed landmines and unexploded ordnance(UXO) by hand in Cambodia. He employs very unusual demining techniques, usually working only with a knife and a sharp stick.

According to debated official story, Aki Ra’s parents were killed by the Khmer Rouge during the Pol Pot regime (1975-1979) and he was raised in a jungle camp as a child soldier. He fought for the Khmer Rouge until 1983 when Siem Reap province, where he lived, was captured by the Vietnamese. He was conscripted into the Vietnamese army on threat of his life while still a boy. He later served with Cambodian army as a teenager and still later received landmine clearance training with the United Nations.

He is the curator and founder (1999) of the Cambodia Landmine Museum, a Cambodian non-governmental organization (NGO). The Landmine Relief Fund, and other groups and individuals provide some of the funding for the landmine safety and education program which Aki Ra regularly conducts in Cambodia's still extremely dangerous rural countryside and jungles. His hope is to establish a new NGO that can develop a Cambodian Self Help Demining program to help Cambodians help themselves clear the millions of mines and UXOs (unexploded ordnance) left littering the countryside making it difficult to farm the land. According to Aki Ra, his mission in life is to "make my country safe for my people."

Aki Ra has been asked many times to speak internationally about landmines and his role extricating them in Cambodia.