Thousands of unexploded civil war-era munitions were found buried under a school in northeast Cambodia, forcing it to shut temporarily.
The ordnance dates back to the 1970s, when the country was in the throes of a harrowing civil war.
Even though the war had concluded 48 years ago, Cambodia continues to grapple with the enduring legacy of being one of the world’s most extensively mined nations.
A total 2,116 pieces of ordnance were unearthed at Queen Kossamak High School in the northeastern province of Kratie by deminers from the Cambodian Mine Action Centre from Friday to Sunday, said Heng Ratana, the director general of the government agency, on his Facebook page.
Chheang Heng, the deputy chief for education for the province, said it was believed that all the ordnance had been cleared from the site.
Before being repurposed as a school, the premises had served as an ammunition warehouse for the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s, according to local media.
A handout photo made available by CMAC on 13 August 2023 shows thousands of unexploded ordnance that are left over from Cambodia’s civil war, after they were unearthed inside a school in Cambodia’s Kratie province— (EPA)
The deminers were engaged in scouring the campus for buried landmines as part of preparations for constructing a new building at the school.
“I know that this school site used to be a big ammunition warehouse of the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s, but I could not believe that there was a huge amount of ammunition buried underground like this,” said Mr Heng, the director general of the Cambodian Mine Action Centre.
A deminer expert stands near a pile of unexploded ordnances at Queen Kossamak High School on 13 August— (AP)
“How many casualties would have happened if this ammunition exploded?” he said.
“It is a huge stroke of luck for the students. These explosive devices are easy to explode if someone dug into the ground and hit them.”
A deminer expert (left) instructs students at Queen Kossamak High School— (AP)
Students were earlier instructed to avoid the school premises until cleanup operations were finished.
The Cambodian government has set a goal to completely clear the country of all remaining land mines and unexploded ordnance by 2025.
