Cambodia: $400M needed to rid mines

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Cambodia needs more than $400 million in aid to remove by 2025 all of the land mines that are a legacy of years of civil war, the country’s prime minister said Friday.

Prime Minister Hun Sen said in a statement marking his nation’s Mine Awareness Day that the mines remain a threat and kill or maim nearly 100 people a year.

Cambodia has cleared about 580 square miles of mines, but nearly 770 square miles of land remains littered with the munitions, Hun Sen said.

Some 60,000 Cambodians have been killed or wounded by mines since 1979, when the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime was ousted from power and began 18 years of guerrilla warfare. Years of civil conflict, as well as bombing by the U.S. Air Force in the early 1970s, riddled the Cambodian landscape with an estimated 4 million to 6 million land mines.

Upcoming Events