A farmer  in Oddar Meanchey’s Chongkal district unearthed 14 pieces of unexploded ordnance – including B40 rockets and 60-millimetre mortar shells – while ploughing his field on Saturday, deputy district governor Thorn Kut said yesterday.

According to Kut, villager Mao Pheu, 45, of Pongro commune’s Banteay Chor village was using a tractor to till his rice paddy when he uncovered the UXOs and hurriedly notified commune police, who reported the find to demining NGO the Halo Trust.  “Those 14 [pieces of] unexploded ordinance were given to Halo Trust Center for destruction,” Kut said. “They might explode if we hit them with something, but they would not explode if we just walked on them.”

District police had found UXOs and turned them over to the Cambodian Mine Action Centre many times in the past, he added. CMAC director Heng Ratana said that from January to March, CMAC had collected and destroyed some 36,000 pieces of UXO across the country.