Mines

After Angola, Cambodia is believed to be the second most densely mined country in the world. Some estimates run as high as ten million mines (in a country of 11.5 million people), though most foreign Non-governmental organisations (NGO’s) estimates 4 to 6 million mines. Cambodia 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. The figures here are not known, though there is an estimated "dud" rate of 10 percent for UXO. There are many different kinds of bombs and mines: US material from the "Vietnam" war era, and Chinese, Soviet and eastern block made materials left from the Khmer Rouge era in the 1970s and a decade of civil war that followed in the 1980s.

As a traveller to Cambodia, it is important to know that mines are a problem today only in certain areas of the country. A recent survey by NGOs found that 70 percent of all casualties were in the northwest, with half in just 20 districts. The area around Angkor Wat and the central plains near Phnom Penh have already been cleared are now deemed safe by the Cambodian government and the NGO’s responsible for the removal and destruction of the mines.

This legacy of three decades of war had taken a severe toll on the Cambodia people; some 40,000 people live as amputees, one of the highest rates in the world. But at least that number again must have died in remote areas before they could be transported to medical facilities, before they were discovered, or because of infections. Because of the lack of a working medical system throughout the country, many Cambodian amputees have had multiple surgeries, one at the time of the initial injury, but others later when infections could not be contained.

The costs of laying mines are low, as little as $3 US per mine, but the costs of removal are very high; around US$200-$1000 per mine. A typical project may employ around 50 deminers (usually locals) who may take up to 6 months to clear an area of several square kilometres which typical costs US$5 per square metre – or around US$380,000.

Fortunately, the number of mine casualties is falling. The numbers of new injuries dropped by half from 1996 to 1997 when the number was 1,369. In 1999 the number had fallen further, to about 1,200, and in 2002 to about 50 per month. Now clinics are increasingly making prosthetics for victims of polio and other diseases, as more than half of their total clients are now not landmine victims.