Follow the money
A surge in U.S. aid is helping Cambodia scale up work to rid its eastern provinces of the deadly detritus of old wars. With other countries pulling funding, deminers are leaving the west—where death and injury from old landmines and artillery shells are far more common—to do it. The consequences could be fatal. There is scarcely a corner of the country not scarred by old landmines and unexploded ordnance, mostly bombs, grenades and artillery shells. Since the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979, they have killed or injured more than 64,000 Cambodians, the brutal legacy of one of the most heavily bombed and landmined countries in the world. Battambang and neighboring provinces in the west have suffered the worst of it—by far—and still do. “If we clear, we can reduce the risk 100 percent. But if we educate, maybe we can reduce the risk only temporarily,” Som Virak, the head of CMAC Unit 1, said.
