Posts tagged Cambodia
at James Madison University
Landmines still blight Southeast Asia
Hundreds of people across Southeast Asia – often children or impoverished villagers looking for scrap metal –continue to be maimed or killed every year by land mines and unexploded bombs, despite a concerted effort by governments to rid the region of the scourge.
It’s a point not lost on the Vietnamese, who are pushing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to take the lead on this issue and establish an expert panel to help resolve it.
The initiative was put forward by Vietnam’s Deputy Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Nguyen Chi Vinh during a meeting of regional defense officials in Brunei recently, where he said such a move would also help maintain peace, stability and development within Southeast Asia.
(Source: southeastasianists)
Landmines victim / Landminen Opfer / Cambodia, 2012 © Rex Schober, iPhone
(Source: rexschober)
PMN2 Anti-personnel mines (Russian) removed from minefields in Cambodia, Landmine Museum, Siem Reap, Cambodia
(Source: everybody-hates-a-tourist)
War relics from the Cambodian Landmine Museum
(Source: josephang)
Cartoon characters are a kid-friendly way to teach children about the dangers of ERW, as used by the Cambodian Mine Action Centre in its mine-risk education.
Injured U.S. deminers in Cambodia sent to Thailand for treatment
A Golden West deminer and three U.S. Marines were injured in Cambodia during a training exercise with CMAC.
PHNOM PENH, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) — The four U.S. demining experts, who were wounded in an unexploded ordnance (UXO) explosion on Tuesday afternoon in Cambodia’s northern province, were brought to Bangkok for medical treatment, spokesman for the U.S. embassy to Cambodia John Simmons said Wednesday.
The four personnel are three U.S. Marines and one U.S. contractor with Golden West Humanitarian Foundation, he said, adding that three of the personnel were evacuated to Bangkok Tuesday evening and the fourth would be evacuated on Wednesday afternoon.
Heng Ratana, director general of Cambodian Mine Action Center (CMAC), said Tuesday that two of the injured are in critical condition.
Deminers hard at work in Cambodia – at least until the money runs out
Yi Am planted mines as a soldier and then lost much of a leg when he stepped on one. Now, he supports his family by making farmers’ fields safe again, a job he says he wants to do ‘forever.’
(samjam For The Globe and Mail)
Towering sugar palms sway in the breeze as lean dogs scamper through overgrown fields, and voices can be heard coming from the thatched-roof houses. Located in the lush green countryside of western Cambodia an hour’s drive from the Thai border, the village of Sek Sak has spent the past 15 years trying to get back to normal. Forced to leave during their country’s bitter civil war, its people began to return after most of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge surrendered in 1998. They carried little with them. If they were to eat, they had to farm.
Marking off fields was a simple, if brutal, process: Work back from the road until someone steps on a mine. Anything beyond that was declared too dangerous, leaving Sek Sak with just enough to get by. It wasn’t until last June that professionals working with the British-based Mines Advisory Group (MAG) finally arrived to finish the job.
One of the “deminers” knows all too well how dangerous a land mine can be. Now 47, Yi Am was a soldier in the 1980s, and planted hundreds of them.
Cambodia records 11 percent drop in landmine casualties in six months
Cambodia on Saturday reported 100 landmine casualties in the first six months of this year, a 11 percent decrease compared with 112 casualties at the same period last year, according to a report from the Cambodian Mine and Explosive Remnants of War Victim Information System.
The report said that from January to June this year, landmines had killed 21 people and injured 79 others, down 16 percent and 9 percent respectively.
During the first half of this year, the worst tragedy occurred on Feb. 3 when an anti-tank mine exploded, killing 8 people in Banteay Meanchey province, some 400 kilometers northwest of Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia.
Thailand, Cambodia agree to jointly remove landmines at Prea Vihear
BANGKOK, June 29 — Thailand and Cambodia agreed at the second meeting of their Joint Working Group (JWG) in Phnom Penh to jointly remove and disarm landmines around Preah Vihear Temple before deciding about international observers, according to Thai Defence Minister Sukumpol Suwanatat.
The committee met Wednesday and Thursday to carry out the Interantional Court of Justice order for provisional measures. Thailand’s Gen Worapong Sanganetra, Joint Chief of Staff of Royal Thai Army was the lead Thai delegate while Cambodia’s team was led by Gen Neang Phat, Secretary of State of the Ministry of National Defense.
Minister Sukumpol said that Thai and Cambodian representatives agreed to remove the landmines around Preah Vihear, but the meeting did not discuss observers as the landmines should first be cleared for the safety of observers.
Burma follows Cambodia on landmine issue
Dan Church Aid conducting demining training in the Democratic Republic of Congo. (Photo: DCA)
Burma’s Department of Social Welfare is rolling out a “mine risk education” program with the cooperation of international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) following in the footsteps of Congo and Cambodia.
Mine and unexploded ordnance awareness as well as demining programs were conducted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Cambodia after the end of their brutal internal conflicts. Burma’s parallel initiative comes amid the central government negotiating ceasefires with various ethnic rebel armies in an attempt to achieve lasting peace deals.
International NGOs such as UNICEF, UNHCR and Dan Church Aid (DCA) are also collaborating under the scheme, run by the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement, to train representatives of community-based organizations (CBOs).
