Mine Action Foundation sends machine to Ukraine
Keystone-SDA
One year after its launch, the fundraising project of the Digger Mine Action Foundation with schools from the Bernese Jura and Biel/Bienne has come to a successful conclusion: a demining machine can now be sent to Ukraine.
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On Saturday, the charitable Digger Foundation honoured the commitment of several hundred pupils and teachers who had taken part in the “Schools united for demining in Ukraine” project. The schools had organised fund-raising campaigns and referred the public to a crowdfunding platform.
A private donor added a further CHF500,000 ($620,000) to the CHF60,000 raised by the pupils. For its part, the Digger Foundation contributed CHF100,000. This raised a total of CHF660,000. “This corresponds to the threshold value above which we can deliver this machine,” the director and founder of the Digger Foundation, Frédéric Guerne, told the Swiss News Agency Keystone-SDA.
The trained engineer had never made a secret of his enthusiasm for the fact that young people were involved in the project. This machine will now be delivered to Ukraine “in the name of the youth of our region”. What initially seemed like a utopia could now be realised, Guerne added.
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Digger has already delivered two machines to Ukraine, currently the most heavily mined war-torn country in the world.
Armoured and remote-controlled machine
The Digger D-250 was developed and built in Tavannes, canton Bern, and is a tracked machine that was created from a combination of tractor and tank. The 12-ton armoured machine is equipped with a demining cutter at the front that removes vegetation.
This system makes it possible to plough the ground at high speed and destroy anti-personnel or anti-tank mines by crushing or detonating them. The Digger D-250s are remote-controlled so that their drivers can remain at a safe distance.
Adapted from German by AI/ts
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