Buried civil war-era weapons unearthed in Cambodia
Nov 25, 2006 - 9:03:44 PM
, Reviewed by: Priya Saxena
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The country remains littered with landmines and unexploded ordinance.
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By DPA,
[RxPG] Phnom Penh, Nov 25 - The discovery of a single shell by a Cambodian led to an excavation of 2,000 shells, grenades and rockets thought to have been stashed during the nation's long civil war, an official said Saturday.
Chieng Sai, director of the Japan Assistance Team for Small Arms Management in Cambodia -, said his organisation was called in after a local stumbled across a single large shell, unearthed due to heavy rain weeks earlier.
They soon discovered more shells stashed in the pit in the northwestern district of Sampov Leun in Battambang province close to the Thai border.
'We just finished the excavation. We now have 2,363 bombs and other unexploded ordinance in total, including 69 grenades,' Sai said. The haul also included rockets with anti-aircraft capabilities.
Although the area had been held by Khmer Rouge forces, Sai said it was impossible to say for sure which force had left the cache or at exactly what period of the country's 30-year civil war because the area had been the focus of years of heavy fighting.
He said that the excavation had led to the discovery of a second large munitions pit in an area nearby and work would begin on the second pit Monday.
Around 60 to 80 percent of the ordinance in the first pit was still in working condition, Sai said.
Cambodia was plunged into civil war in 1970 when Lon Nol staged a coup and overthrew prince Norodom Sihanouk.
The Maoist Khmer Rouge took power from 1975 until the regime's overthrow by Vietnamese troops in 1979, but the Khmer Rouge fled to the jungles and continued to fight a fierce guerilla war against government troops until 1998.
The country remains littered with landmines and unexploded ordinance.
Stashes of small arms and shells left by fleeing armies are also periodically discovered hidden in underground munitions dumps such as this one.
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