PHNOM PENH, April 1 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia has cleared over 19,000 hectares or 190 square kilometers of land contaminated with mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) under the China-aided landmine elimination project from 2018 to February 2026, a mine clearance chief said on Wednesday.
"This operational achievement has found and destroyed a total of over 105,000 landmines and UXO," Heng Ratana, director general of the Cambodian Mine Action Center (CMAC), said in a post on social media. "More than 378,000 families, equivalent to over 1,454,000 people, have benefited both directly and indirectly from this project."
Under this project, CMAC officials had also provided mine and explosive remnants of war (ERW) awareness education to a total of over 4.6 million people, the official said.
Ratana expressed his deepest gratitude to the government and people of China for their consistent support in both funding and technical equipment for mine and ERW clearance in the Southeast Asian country.
"These are essential factors that enable CMAC to expand the scope of its operations more broadly and effectively, contributing to the further development and progress of the country," he said.
Cambodia is one of the countries worst-affected by landmines and ERWs. An estimated 4 million to 6 million landmines and other munitions had been left over from three decades of war and internal conflicts that ended in 1998.
From 1979 to 2025, landmine and ERW explosions had claimed 19,845 human lives and either injured or amputated 45,280 others in the kingdom, said a government report.
The country is committed to clearing all types of landmines and ERWs by 2030. ■
