A farmer in Banteay Meanchey’s Malai district found a dozen boxes of 12mm bullets in a field and handed them over to police yesterday.

Banteay Meanchey police chief At Khem said a local farmer discovered the discarded ammunition while digging.

“There are 12 boxes and a total of 1,010 bullets that the farmer found when he used a cultivator to dig the land,” Khem said, adding that the bullets would likely be dangerous to use at this point as they had degraded to about “50 per cent quality”.

After the farmer made the discovery, others working nearby came to inspect the boxes.

“We wondered what it was. We opened [one], and saw the bullets,” said Chen Da, a villager who lives in Malai district. “We did not dare to do anything with them because we were afraid they might be dangerous, so we reported them to the police to deal with.”

Khem thanked the local people for calling in the find. “We always appeal to residents to report any found bullets or guns to the police for safe keeping,” he said.

According to the Cambodia Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority, Banteay Meanchey had the fourth most accidents related to unexploded ordinance and other war remnants during the period January 2015 through June 2016, with 15 recorded.