UXO found in three different provinces

B40 rocket-propelled grenades sit on a table in Siem Reap province on Monday after they were retrieved from a cassava farm by authorities. National Police

UXO found in three different provinces

Wed, 15 June 2016

Khouth Sophak Chakrya

Dozens of pieces of unexploded ordnance and hundreds of AK-47 bullets have been found on farmland in three provinces in recent days and handed over for disposal, according to local authorities yesterday.

Sok Sothearvuth, police chief in Siem Reap’s Chi Kraeng district, said that Mao Pich, 24, a farmer living in Khvav commune, on Monday morning handed over to the local authorities 31 unexploded rockets that were impounded by the Cambodian Mine Action Centre, who identified them as Chinese-made.

Pich’s ploughing discs struck on a blue bag buried in the ground; the bag tore and the ordnance fell out.

On Monday afternoon, a villager in Preah Sihanouk province’s Veal Rinh commune found an M-79 grenade round in landfill soil he had purchased, said Prey Nop district police chief Hing Chanrith.

“The M-79 was made in the US. It was left over from the war in Cambodia in the 1970s,” he said.

His authorities marked a perimeter around the site and placed a sign to prevent people from entering while they wait for CMAC experts to retrieve and destroy it.

Meanwhile, on Saturday in Banteay Meanchey province, one farmer found 550 AK-47 bullets and another located five AK-47s and two rocket launchers while ploughing land.

Border police official Brak Sam, in Thma Puok district, said that to encourage people to report weapons to authorities, the police provided monetary incentives and a reward certificate to each of the two men.