PHNOM PENH, May 17, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Cambodian deminers have discovered
three anti-personnel landmines from the country's civil war in a tree trunk,
an official said Friday.

Millions of landmines were laid in Cambodia during the country's nearly
three-decade civil war, which ended in 1998, causing tens of thousands of
casualties.

Deminers found the three landlines that had been installed in the tree, which
then grew around them, during their mine-clearance operation in northwestern
Banteay Meanchey province on Wednesday, Heng Ratana, the director general of
the Cambodian Mine Action Centre, told AFP.

He said it was not the first time that his deminers had found a landmine in a
tree.

"But this time, it's a bit surprising to see many landmines laid on a tree,"
he said, adding that the explosive devices had been safely removed.

"During the war, soldiers laid these landmines with trip wire to ambush their
enemies."

Cambodia is littered with discarded ammunition and arms from decades of civil
war from the 1960s.

Deaths from mines and unexploded ordnance are common, with around 20,000
fatalities since 1979, and twice that number injured in accidents involving
landmines and unexploded ordnance.

In August last year, thousands of pieces of unexploded ordnance left over
from the war were unearthed inside a school in the country's northeast.

And in 2018, an Australian and a Cambodian were killed when war-era ordnance
exploded during a de-mining training exercise in southern Cambodia.

The government has vowed to clear all mines and unexploded ordnance by 2025.