Starting from November 2017, the US Department of State would provide more than $16 million a month to the Cambodian Mine Action Center (CMAC) for them to clear US bombs and unexploded ordnance left by the Vietnam War in the eastern part of the country.
According to Mr. Heng Ratana, CMAC's Director General, an agreement was signed on Wednesday between CMAC and the US funded Norwegian People's Aid's (NPA), in a view to support CMAC's 5th Unit to clear landmines until the end of the year 2017.
Mr. Ratana added that the cooperation between CMAC and NPA has started since three years ago with funding of around $2.1 million a year from the US Government. However, through «his talk» with the US Department of State, CMAC would receive more than $32 million from the US Government for the last two months of the year 2017.
Mr. Ratana also said that since 2008, CMAC has agreed with the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement (WRA) of the US Department of State to clear, in a number of prioritized zones, explosive remnants of war made in USA such as fragmentation bombs, bombs dropped from US airplanes, and a number of other unexploded ordnance (UXO).
So far, only around 70,000 hectares of land were cleared from fragmentation bombs by CMAC. Other thousand hectares of land needed to be cleared until 2025. For this reason, CMAC would like to ask for strong support until 2025.
According to Mr. Ratana, the US supported CMAC's 5th Unit is focusing in clearing landmine and UXO in Tbong Khmum, Prey Veng, Svay Rieng provinces etc. For the last nine months, the 5th Unit removed and destroyed more than 19.000 explosive remnants of war among which more than 5.100 UXOs were fragmentation bombs. As the result, the total of more than 3.100 hectares of land were cleared.
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