Left-over ammunition in northwest Cambodia has killed 14 people, the latest to pay the price for a conflict that has riddled the country for years.
The victims, including a baby, were travelling on a trailer towed by a tractor along a remote road on Tuesday when an anti-tank mine exploded in Battambang province, Police Chief Buth Sambo said on Wednesday, AFP reported.
According to state-funded BBC, the driver had decided to take a short-cut and crossed into a field which had once been the site of heavy fighting between the Khmer Rouge and government troops.
The Khmer Rouge was the name given to the followers of the Communist Party of Cambodia, which led a ruthless rule over Cambodia from 1975 to 1979.
The organization is remembered primarily for its policy of social engineering, which resulted in genocide. About 1.7 million people died from starvation, disease, overwork and execution under Khmer's reign.
According to the aid group Handicap International, more than 60,000 people have been killed or wounded by mines or unexploded ammunition in Cambodia since 1979.
A conference was recently held in neighboring Laos to highlight the problem of cluster bombs left behind by the war.
RZS/MB/HRF
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