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| Cambodia is littered with landmines (Photo: Sean Sutton/MAG) |
BANGKOK, 7 June 2011 (IRIN) – Cambodia’s ongoing border dispute with Thailand is undermining mine-clearance activities inside the country, specialists say.
“The lack of clearance along parts of the border stops the removal of mines, leading to more casualties,” Cameron Imber, programme manager for the British demining NGO Halo Trust, told IRIN from the northwestern town of Siem Reap.
The heavily mined border area in the country’s northwest includes a 1,065km long minefield known as “K5″, which runs along the 798km Thai-Cambodian border. Laid by the north Vietnamese in the mid-1980s, K5 runs all the way from Koh Kong Province in the southwest up to Preah Vihear in the northwest.
Packed with up to 2,400 mines per linear km, K5 remains excluded from mine-removal programmes because the two countries have been at loggerheads over ownership of an ancient Hindu temple and UN World Heritage site on the Cambodian side of the border. Thousands were displaced on both sides earlier this year.
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