Anti-tank mines kill 3 in Cambodia
7/3/2007 17:40
Three people died on Monday evening in a forest in Battambang province's
Bavel district, when the trailer transporting them home from collecting firewood
detonated anti-tank mines, local media said today.
The victims, identified as
Leng Chin, 45, his son Chin Ros, 10, and the trailer's driver, Nhan Kong, 28,
lost their lives at about 05:30 p.m. when the trailer accidentally ran over
landmines about three meters away from a path to get out of the forest,
according to daily newspaper the Kampuchea Thmey.
The landmines, buried
overlapping, shot the trailer and the three dozens of meters above the ground,
with the explosions ripping the victims' bodies into pieces, local residents
told the paper.
The site of the fatal incident is a former battlefield
littered with tank and anti-personnel mines left behind from Cambodia's civil
war, said local officials, adding that only people from other villages who do
not know the place dare to enter the forest to collect firewood.
According to
official statistics, there were more than 400 human casualties over mine and UXO
explosions in 2006 in Cambodia, or 50 percent decrease over the average number
of the previous six years.
Due to 30 years of armed conflicts, Cambodia has
become one of the world's most heavily mined countries with an estimated four to
six million of such "hidden killers" buried underground in areas as extensive as
2,900 square kilometers.
All the mines and UXO may take another 150 years for
the kingdom to clear out, statistics said.
Xinhua
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