More than two thousand explosive devices dating from the civil war in Cambodia have been discovered in a school in the northeast of this Southeast Asian country, authorities announced on Sunday.
Cambodia remains one of the most mined countries in the world after thirty years of civil war, particularly intense American bombardments and the genocide perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s.
20,000 Cambodians were killed by landmines in 2019
In three days, deminers discovered more than 2,000 explosive munitions, including more than 1,000 M79 grenades, in the grounds of a high school in the province of Kratie which, to enlarge a garden, had undertaken to clear land, explained Heng Ratana, Director General of the Cambodian Mine Action Center.
The school was temporarily closed and the search continued on Sunday. The site was a military base and could still harbor other munitions, Heng Ratana said. The official was delighted that the ammunition had thus been detected, a “stroke of luck” for the students because “these devices explode easily if someone hits them while digging a hole”.
Nearly 20,000 Cambodians have been killed by landmines and around 45,000 others have been injured, according to a 2019 report by the NGO Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor. The kingdom has set itself the goal of completely eliminating landmines buried in its soil by 2025.