Aki Ra

Aki Ra is a former Khmer Rouge conscripted child soldier who works as a deminer and museum curator. He has devoted his life to removing landmines in Cambodia and to caring for young landmine victims. Today, 29 children live at the Cambodia Landmine Museum Relief Center.

About Aki Ra in brief

Aki Ra is a former Khmer Rouge conscripted child soldier who works as a deminer and museum curator in Siem Reap, Cambodia. He has devoted his life to removing landmines in Cambodia and to caring for young landmine victims. Aki Ra is unsure of his age, but believes he was born in 1970 or 1973. He was born Eoun Yeak, but one of his supervisors once compared his efficiency to AKIRA, a heavy-duty appliance company in Japan. The name Aki Ra was given to him by a Japanese acquaintance and is not his birth name. In early 2009, a boy came to live with Aki Ra and Hourt who had lost an arm and most of a hand to a cluster munition. Aki Ra found him in the hospital and told his family about the Museum.

He now lives there and attends school. Today, 29 children live at the Cambodia Landmine Museum Relief Center. In the past they were mainly landmine. victims, but now they also include children born without limbs, polio victims, and some with HIV. Some are orphans and some have parents who cannot afford to raise them. Funds from the museum are entirely dedicated to the support of these children to feed them, clothe them, and send them to school. In 2008 with the help of the Landmine Relief Fund, an American charity, the Mine Clearing Team – Cambodia, an Australian veterans group, obtained full certification. It is the Cambodian Self Help Demining Authority.