Developing locality demining
Story and photographs by Sean Sutton
Two locality demining teams have been working for the last year in Sala Kram district in eastern Battambang province. With AusAid funding, MAG will shortly start recruiting more staff from the district and train a further two teams to support the development of seven highly contaminated villages. This will be done in partnership with CARE.
Twelve deminers will be recruited from the local community for each team and trained for six weeks. Experienced personnel are used for the more skilled positions: supervisors, trauma medics, senior and quality assurance deminers. Locality deminers live within ten kilometres of their place of work and are often from the affected villages themselves. The money they earn not only supports their families, but also benefits the general community.
MAG community liaison officer, Sor Savanny, travelled to one of the target villages - On Rouel - to carry out a village assessment in order to make a more detailed plan for assisting the community. She explained to the villagers the development plan and how the concept of locality demining works. Discussions intensified as a map is drawn of the village and everyone became involved offering their point of view. Villagers pointed out dangerous areas, places where accidents have happened and where resettled families will live. Their development needs are taken into account and all the information is marked on the map.
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| Sor Sovanny carries out the village assessment |
"There is a lot of land we can't use. It affects us badly and many people have no land to farm and can't grow food to eat. Sadly, this is still a common scenario in many parts of Cambodia.
Nobody knew how many accidents have occurred in and around the village, but they said that in the last year there have been ten.
Sixty per cent of villagers are recent arrivals and the development plan includes land for sixty more families who want to return to the village. After MAG has cleared the dangerous areas, CARE will build roads, wells, a school and fish ponds, and will assist with irrigation and agriculture.
"When my family started to farm we found mines, so we stopped," said Ti Tha. "We are hungry and survive on handouts. When this land has been cleared, our village will flourish - it will be like it was thirty years ago."
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