MAHMUDLU, Azerbaijan - When Fikrat Shahvaranov first invited me to a minefield in Azerbaijan, I imagined we both might be killed. I had heard mines detonate in the night outside his family home when I first visited the country. Instead, the mustachioed father with cool blue eyes and dark Turkic features wanted to show me his work clearing landmines, confronting the legacy of the still-unresolved Azeri-Armenian conflict.

Since working with Shahvaranov on refugee returns in the heavily-mined area near his home in East Fuzuli for the