Story by Chham Rivann, MAG Cambodia Project Officer.
Forty-nine year old Pen Kourm ilives with his wife Phal and four children – three sons and a daughter – in the Malai district of Banteay Meanchey province.
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The family at work cultivating their land, which is now free from the deadly threat of landmines [Photo: © MAG Cambodia 2007] |
Born in Borvel, a village in Battambang province, economic necessities in the aftermath of conflict forced Kourm and his family to relocate to Kbal Tumnob village, Ou Sampoar commune, in 1996.
Like many others, they were forced to move to suspected minefields.
“I was very afraid of mines around here,” said Kourm, “but we decided to live here and take the daily risk of death or injury simply because we had no other choice.”
“Before the area was cleared, we lived in fear for our lives and the lives of our children. We tried our best to keep them in the safe areas. MAG deminers did a very dangerous job so well to clear the mines to help make things better for us.”
MAG demining team ‘MAT 16’ was deployed to Kourm’s village under funding from Church World Service (CWS) to clear land for resettlement and cultivation.
They cleared 97,493 sq/m of land, finding and destroying 199 anti-personnel mines in the process.
For Kourm and the other villagers, this means not just peace of mind but also the chance of a better future: “Now we can build new houses on safe land. We can safely cultivate our land; we can grow rice and have a small market.
“There’s now a health centre 15 km from this village and also our children can go to school, so things are getting better.
“But I think that we need more assistance to provide us with agricultural and technical knowledge, and we also need credit and other creative ideas to help our community develop.”
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