Cambodian experts begin training Ukrainian deminers
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By SOPHENG CHEANG
Associated Press
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Fifteen Ukrainian deminers are being trained by experts in Cambodia who are among the world’s best because of experience from clearing the leftovers of nearly three decades of war. Cambodia was littered with land mines and other unexploded ordnance after the end of fighting in the late 1990s. Nearly 20,000 people have been killed and about 45,000 injured by leftover war explosives since then. In the past decade, several thousand Cambodian deminers have been sent under United Nations auspices to work in Africa and the Middle East. The New York-based group Human Rights Watch says Russia is using land mines in Ukraine that are causing civilian casualties and disrupting food production.