GRANADA, Colombia—At first, Sandra Gonzalez didn’t think much of the guerrillas burying objects on the dirt road outside her isolated, cinder-block farmhouse as they prepared to leave town 12 years ago.
But soon cows and horses began to die, ripped apart by exploding land mines. Then a neighbor lost his life. From then on, neither Gonzalez nor her four children have dared to turn right walking out the door.
“When the livestock escaped from the corral, nobody would chase after them,” Gonzalez said.
Tens of thousands of land mines are among the most sinister scars of Colombia’s half-century conflict. And even as the government and rebels hold slow-moving peace talks in Cuba, more are being planted, perhaps faster than old ones can be removed.
This is no place to be nervous.
