Cambodia Plans to be Mine-free by 2020

By Lang Hokleng | Published on May 1, 2008

PHNOM PENH – More than two decades of civil war has left millions of mines scattered throughout Cambodia, which have claimed lives and wounded hundreds of thousands of people, leaving them to live with disabilities.

In Cambodia’s chronic conflict, all sides used low-cost antipersonnel devices as a means of denying territory to their opponents. The result is a country infested with land mines that have to be cleared before people can return safely to their homes and Cambodia's agricultural economy can begin to recover. They have taken a terrible toll on and mutilated the Cambodian people.

According to the Cambodian Mine Action Center (CMAC), there is an estimated 4 to 6 million mines buried in Cambodia, and this country is also littered with other kinds of unexploded ordinance (UXO) left over from half a million tons of bombs dropped on Cambodia by the United States in the late 60s and early 70s.

However, the problem of landmines in Cambodia has an optimistic long-term outlook. New mines are no longer being laid and the number of new injuries is declining dramatically. Still, the issue will remain central to understanding Cambodian society for some time. The poorest of the poor will continue to risk their lives to live in areas not yet cleared, and the process of removing the landmines and UXO that remain could take more than a decade.

“In the millennium development goal, the royal government is strongly committed to and has very ambitious target that foresee a complete eradication of civil casualties and clearance of the suspected mined areas by 2012, however, the activities of mine clearance has been slightly increased, therefore, it is projected that by the year 2015, Cambodia may have achieved 81 percent of landmine and UXO clearance in the suspected contaminated areas. Thus, Cambodia may be able to [be] free from landmines and UXOs by the year of 2020,” said Khem Sophoan, Director General of Cambodian Mines Action Center (CMAC).

At the present time, Cambodia is fighting very hard against millions of landmines and UXOs, which have affected approximately 55,000 victims, one of the highest rates in the world, and they still endanger hundreds of lives each year. Among those victims, only a small number have received rehabilitation assistance from national and international organizations, he added.

According to the report from the Cambodia Mines Action and Assistance Authority (CMAA), 6,422 villages in a 4,466 million square meter area were affected; mines or UXO may contaminate 2.5 percent of the country’s surface area. The survey estimated that 5.1 million people were at risk. About 1,640 villages, approximately 12 percent of all villages, are highly contaminated with landmines and UXO. Sixty-one percent of the suspected areas are concentrated in the five provinces of Battambang, Banteay Meanchey, Oddar Meanchey, Preah Vihear, and Pailin municipality in the north and northwestern parts of the country.

“With full efforts by CMAC and the support from development partners, landmine casualties declined more than double from 800 victims in 2006 to 340 last year”, said Sophoan. “We are very happy that the number of casualties decreased, and we still continuing our efforts to prevent casualties from landmines and unexploded ordnance in order to develop the nation and help our rural vulnerable people.”

Nath Bunroeun, Under-Secretary of State for the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports, said that the Ministry has actively cooperated with those mine-clearance bodies to educate rural children and dwellers about the impact of mines and UXOs. “We hope that the landmine casualties will further drop to zero soon with [the] active clearance campaign,” he said.

According to the CMAC’s report, during the first three months of 2008, 8,161 anti-personnel mines (AP), 132 anti-tank mines (AT), 29,047 UXOs, and 4,973,150 fragments had been de-mined within a 7,147,796 square meter area that was announced to be free of mines and UXOs. In 2007, 32,245 AP, 587 AT, 114,755 UXOs, and 24,732,667 fragments had been de-mined in a 25,004,707 square meter area and announced landmine-free.

In Cambodia, the CMAA estimates that 425.17 million square meters of land requires clearance. Since organized mine clearance operations began in 1992, 387,141 AP, 7,292 AT, 1,284,974 UXOs, and 387,867,811 fragments had been de-mined by March 2008 in a 204.20 million square meter area and announced to be landmine-free.