AFP
POIPET (Cambodia): Seng Heng was convincing enough when he said the hundreds of artillery shells and mortars scattered around him had been disarmed.
After all, two young men were casually tossing rusting hand grenades onto a pile of larger shells and nothing had happened to them, despite the bombs still being loaded with TNT.
“One shell being cut discharged, but landed a long way away injuring people there,” he said about an accident at a nearby scrap yard as he lounges in a shack built just meters from the deadly refuse.
“It discharged and it killed people over there,” he added with a laugh, as if to dismiss any thoughts of danger.
Trucks loaded down with metal arrive daily at this vast scrap yard outside Poipet, one of eight operating in or around this border town that processes the debris before it is loaded on trucks going to Thailand.
With this tangle of rust comes the after-effects of Cambodia’s decades of conflict — mortars and shells, landmines, hand grenades, the remains of pistols and rifles — all now part of the economics of war debris.
The number of Cambodians killed or maimed by landmines or unexploded munitions could be halved this year from nearly 900 reported casualties in 2005, partially due to a sweeping crackdown on the practice of salvaging scrap metal from live explosives.
But the millions of landmines and other munitions still littering Cambodia after decades of war are a gold mine for desperately poor locals, and authorities warn that little can be done to stop one of the country’s deadliest trades.
“The cutting of shells for scrap metal causes the most danger,” said Khem Sophoan, director general of the Cambodian Mine Action Group (CMAC), the government’s demining agency.
While much emphasis has been placed on landmines — Cambodia remains one of the world’s most heavily-mined countries with up to 10 million devices still strewn through its forests and rice fields — most reported casualties over the past two years have been the result of exploding ordnance.
“When people find mines or munitions they always try to break them apart. Because they are not skilled, they are often killed,” he said
“Police are cracking down on scrap buyers but the bigger problem is people scavenging (for ordnance) to sell because they are so poor,” he added.
Jean Van Wetter, a coordinator at Handicap International in Cambodia, agreed, saying the selling of unexploded ordnance, or UXOs, was “now banned, it’s forbidden, but the trade continues to flourish”.
While authorities have taken “strong measures” to stop scrap dealers from buying UXOs and discourage villagers from scavenging for them, including warnings sent to some 300 scrap yards not to buy the explosives, “it is not enough,” Van Wetter said.
Deminers like those at CMAC struggle to keep pace with the volume of ordnance ending up in the hundreds of scrap yards around Cambodia.
Two hours outside of Poipet a bomb squad carefully placed explosive charges around a cache of landmines recently seized from a nearby yard.
Moving several hundreds meters down the road, they warned passersby and farmers working in the surrounding fields of the coming detonation before unleashing a huge blast.
After all, two young men were casually tossing rusting hand grenades onto a pile of larger shells and nothing had happened to them, despite the bombs still being loaded with TNT.
“One shell being cut discharged, but landed a long way away injuring people there,” he said about an accident at a nearby scrap yard as he lounges in a shack built just meters from the deadly refuse.
“It discharged and it killed people over there,” he added with a laugh, as if to dismiss any thoughts of danger.
Trucks loaded down with metal arrive daily at this vast scrap yard outside Poipet, one of eight operating in or around this border town that processes the debris before it is loaded on trucks going to Thailand.
With this tangle of rust comes the after-effects of Cambodia’s decades of conflict — mortars and shells, landmines, hand grenades, the remains of pistols and rifles — all now part of the economics of war debris.
The number of Cambodians killed or maimed by landmines or unexploded munitions could be halved this year from nearly 900 reported casualties in 2005, partially due to a sweeping crackdown on the practice of salvaging scrap metal from live explosives.
But the millions of landmines and other munitions still littering Cambodia after decades of war are a gold mine for desperately poor locals, and authorities warn that little can be done to stop one of the country’s deadliest trades.
“The cutting of shells for scrap metal causes the most danger,” said Khem Sophoan, director general of the Cambodian Mine Action Group (CMAC), the government’s demining agency.
While much emphasis has been placed on landmines — Cambodia remains one of the world’s most heavily-mined countries with up to 10 million devices still strewn through its forests and rice fields — most reported casualties over the past two years have been the result of exploding ordnance.
“When people find mines or munitions they always try to break them apart. Because they are not skilled, they are often killed,” he said
“Police are cracking down on scrap buyers but the bigger problem is people scavenging (for ordnance) to sell because they are so poor,” he added.
Jean Van Wetter, a coordinator at Handicap International in Cambodia, agreed, saying the selling of unexploded ordnance, or UXOs, was “now banned, it’s forbidden, but the trade continues to flourish”.
While authorities have taken “strong measures” to stop scrap dealers from buying UXOs and discourage villagers from scavenging for them, including warnings sent to some 300 scrap yards not to buy the explosives, “it is not enough,” Van Wetter said.
Deminers like those at CMAC struggle to keep pace with the volume of ordnance ending up in the hundreds of scrap yards around Cambodia.
Two hours outside of Poipet a bomb squad carefully placed explosive charges around a cache of landmines recently seized from a nearby yard.
Moving several hundreds meters down the road, they warned passersby and farmers working in the surrounding fields of the coming detonation before unleashing a huge blast.
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