Deminers abroad

CAMBODIAN forces will depart for Lebanon later this year to assist in demining operations in collaboration with the United Nations, officials said.

Prak Sokhon, a secretary of state at the Council of Ministers who is also vice president of the Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority, said Sunday that 219 troops will leave the country in late October or early November. The Kingdom has already sent demining and construction equipment to Lebanon, he said.

“This is the first time we have dispatched our engineering forces to construct buildings, roads and bridges,” Prak Sokhon told reporters following the return of the Cambodian delegation from the US-ASEAN Leaders’ Meeting in New York. “If the UN wants us to continue after this one-year mission is completed, we will do it.”

Cambodia has sent more than 450 peacekeepers to Sudan on four missions since 2006, and additional RCAF troops have been sent to Chad and the Central African Republic.

Lebanon remains heavily mined, particularly in the south, because of years of conflict and Israeli occupation.