Målet om minfritt Kambodja tvingas skjutas upp

Cambodia is a country located in Southeast Asia that has a major problem with land mines, especially in rural areas. This is the legacy of three decades of war which has taken a severe toll on the Cambodians; it has some 40,000 + amputees, which is one of the highest rates in the world. The Cambodian Mine Action Centre (CMAC) estimates that there may be as many as four to six million mines and other pieces of unexploded ordnance in Cambodia. Some estimates, however, run as high as ten million mines. The Chinese-made land mines in Cambodia were placed by the Cambodian factions (including the Lon Nol, Khmer Rouge, the Heng Samrin and Hun Sen regimes, as well as the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea who, with international support retained the UN seat throughout much of the 1980s) which clashed during the Civil War in Cambodia in the 1970s and 1980s. The Dangrek genocide in June 1979 was in great part due to civilian victims crossing over land mines placed along the border by Thai, Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge contingents. They were placed in the whole territory of the country. A common problem Cambodians faced with the anti-personnel mines is that even those who placed the mines didn't have maps or memory of their location. While many mines were placed with the sole intent to harm humans, some were placed with the intent to protect an area. Many sacred temples were surrounded by land mines to protect them from looting, which used to be a major problem. The CMAC (Cambodia Mine Action Center) has cleared many of these areas and put up signs stating their work in previous minefields.