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Two years after MAG finished clearing land in Ou Chamlong village, Battambang province, business is booming.
Two former minefields have been transformed into plots thick with sweetcorn, tapioca and beans. Large trucks from Thailand arrive in the village and buy the produce to take back over the border.
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MAG in Cambodia: facts and figures
July-September 2009 465,897 square metres cleared 29 villages cleared 1,453 anti-personnel mines destroyed 11 anti-tank mines destroyed 4,129 items of unexploded ordnance (UXO) destroyed 16,742 direct beneficiaries |
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Ou Chamlong is a relatively small village of 225 households, but almost 3,000 anti-personnel mines and about 80 items of unexploded ordnance (UXO) were found and destroyed there.
Duk Nan, 60, describes the village before it was cleared. “Most of the land was left unused, as it was heavily mined. It became thickly forested,” he recalls. “At that time, if we had food, that was enough.”
Today, his money stretches beyond what is necessary for supporting his five daughters. “I have a motorbike, cows and a television,” he says.
Ou Chamlong’s village chief, Kim Chin, says that development in the village occurred soon after the clearance work, and that no safe land is left unused.
“Development here has doubled. People’s living conditions are now a lot better,” he says.
Your donation to MAG helps us to move into current and former conflict zones to clear the remnants of conflict, enabling recovery and assisting the development of affected populations.
[Photo, top: A truck in Ou Chamlong village being loaded with fresh produce. Nick Axelrod / MAG]
23 November 09
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