War Ghosts

At first it is the red-tipped stakes I see rising about a metre from the white Angolan sand.  A double row of them marks a narrow corridor of death snaking through the bush.  Then I see that between the stakes lie partially uncovered anti-tank mines.  Twenty-eight years ago I was a soldier on the frontline of battle.  Now the frontline is still here and the mines fight on like a lost regiment, not knowing that the war is long over.  It is the mine-clearing NGO, the HALO Trust that forms today’s opposing army as they painstakingly find and destroy the mines, making the land safe for the people of Angola.

Read the full story of this year's visit to Cuito Cuanavale on my travel blog:  Wandering not Lost