Landmines UXO and demining

Cambodia’s newest demining employee comes with an impressive resume, years of experience – and four legs. Rambo touched down in Phnom Penh yesterday, then was driven to the Cambodian Mine Action Centre (CMAC) training facility in Kampong Chhnang province. He is the first of 18 trained ...

A 250-kilogram piece of unexploded ordnance (UXO) left behind from the US’s extensive bombing campaign here was found on Saturday by construction workers digging in Kandal province’s Ksach Kandal district, and was safely removed yesterday, Cambodian Mine Action Centre authorities said. ...

The Belgian demining NGO APOPO, which is pioneering the use of mine-detecting rats in the former battlefields of Cambodia, has received funding from the German government to expand its mine-clearance work in the country. In November, the government gave the green light for APOPO to begin ...

Two children were killed by the explosion of an unfired rifle shell in a rice field in Battambang province on Friday afternoon, a district police officer said. Captain Phong Sarin, district deputy police chief, said that Roeun Rith, 7, and Mann Marin, 7, “saw an unexploded ...

The Ministry of Defence will dispatch more than 300 members of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) to Mali as part of a United Nations peacekeeping mission, a senior government official said yesterday. ...

The Cambodian Mine Action Center (CMAC) said Wednesday that it has closed its investigation into a fire at an equipment repair workshop in Battambang City on January 24 that destroyed equipment and vehicles worth an estimated $400,000. Heng Ratana, CMAC’s director-general, said that the fire had ...

The Cambodian Mine Action Centre (CMAC) is looking to increase its annual budget to $33 million this year amid a need to upgrade its life-saving equipment, an official said yesterday. Approximately $10 million has already been raised, according to CMAC director Heng Ratana, who expressed confidence ...

The Cambodian Mine Action Centre (CMAC) announced that USD 33 millions is needed to clear off mines and Unexploded Ordinance scattered around Cambodia-Thailand border. USD 20 millions of the total amount is for equipment, and USD 13 millions for mine clearing operation. ...

A 60 mm mortar shell exploded in northern Cambodia Thursday afternoon, claiming the livers of two boys and a girl, the local police said. Landmines and unexploded ordnance killed 22 people and injured 89 others in 2013, according to a report of the Cambodian Mine ...

Landmines had killed 22 people in Cambodia in 2013, down 49 percent compared with 43 deaths in a year earlier, a report of the Cambodian Mine Action Authority showed Tuesday. Besides the deaths, 89 others were injured, down 37 percent from 142 injuries, the report said. ...

An unscheduled bathroom break led to the discovery of 27 pieces of unexploded ordnance in Kampong Speu’s Samrong Tong district on Monday, military police said yesterday. ...

Villagers involved in a land dispute in Battambang province on Monday temporarily detained six men working for an agribusiness firm who were preparing the disputed land to be cleared, residents and police said. The six workers were using mine detectors to check for unexploded ordnance in ...

Cambodia will on Tuesday introduce measures intended to better serve disabled people living in the provinces and will hold its first workshop on the draft of a new five-year plan to improve disability services, the government said at an annual meeting of members to the ...

A team of 12 Chinese military experts on Thursday started offering a six-week mine clearance course to 52 Cambodian peacekeeping force. The training is being held at the Institute for Peacekeeping Forces, Mine and Explosive Remnants of War Clearance. According to the Cambodian Mine Action Authority, ...

Cambodia celebrated its 15th annual Cambodia Day of Persons with Disabilities and the 31st annual International Day of Persons with Disabilities, on Tuesday at the Phnom Penh Cultural Center. Prime Minister Hun Sen attended the event themed, “Removing barriers to create an inclusive and accessible ...

Primary school students playing outside their school in Oddar Meanchey province discovered an exposed landmine in the school yard on Wednesday. Students at Hun Sen Anlong Veng Primary School found the mine poking out of the ground “like a custard apple” while they were playing near ...

The battle against landmines could soon have an unlikely new weapon after a pioneering Belgian NGO signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the government on Monday to begin testing teams of sharp-sniffing rodents in Cambodia, with the goal of pitching them into the ongoing ...

Switzerland on Tuesday granted 3 million U.S. dollars to Cambodia through the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) for mine clearance. The agreement was inked between Rahel Boesch, director of Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation office in Cambodia, and Setsuko Yamazaki, director of UNDP office in Cambodia, ...

Seven people were injured on Wednesday morning after they stepped on an old landmine while walking to their rice fields in a former battlefield in Anlong Veng district of Oddar Meanchey province, the provincial governor, Sar Thavy said. ...

A cache of 130 AK-47 rifles, ammunition and two unexploded rockets have been found by a group of children in the Oral mountain range, Kampong Chhnang police officials said yesterday. Khem Vibol, police chief at Teuk Phos district, where the weapons were reported to the authorities, ...

Two Cambodian soldiers sustained injuries after accidentally setting off a buried anti-personnel mine in Pailin on Sunday. The soldiers were stationed at the A3 military camp based in Chheu Krom village, on the Cambodian-Thai border in Pailin. ...

Landmines had killed 21 people in Cambodia in the first nine months of 2013, a 43 percent drop compared with the 37 deaths over the same period last year, a report of the Cambodian Mine Action Authority showed Saturday. From January to September this year, 57 ...

The government of Japan will donate about $9.13 million to the Cambodian Mine Action Center (CMAC) to further their efforts in clearing Battambang province’s Bavel and Ratanak Mondol districts, two of the most heavily mined areas nationwide, officials said Wednesday. ...

In the past decade, thanks to extensive demining efforts, few residents of Battambang province’s Rokha Kiri district had seen land mines, millions of which once covered Cambodian soil after decades of civil war. ...