Monday, 8 September 2008

Five killed, three wounded by anti-tank mine in Cambodia

www.chinaview.cn
2008-09-07

PHNOM PENH, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- A truck carrying rice to a mill hit an anti-tank mine in Koun Kreal commune, Sam Rong district of Oddar Meanchey province of Cambodia, killing five people and injuring three, including a baby boy aged eight months, national media reported Sunday.

The place is the last battlefield of civil war and local people were warned not to travel on that old road because it was planted with heavy mines, Khmer-language newspaper the Rasmey Kampuchea quoted Men Ly, police chief of Oddar Meanchey province, as saying.

But they do not have other choice of road and the accident occurred Friday, Men Ly added.

In the past years, the number of mine casualties stood at over 800 people each year in Cambodia, one of the world's most-heavily mined countries with an estimated of 4 million to 6 million of such "hidden killers" buried underground.

According to statistics of Cambodian Center of Mine Action (CMAC), 1,640 of 13,913 villages of Cambodia were seriously suffered from mines.  

Editor: An

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