PHNOM PENH: A rocket-propelled grenade believed to be more than 25 years old killed two cousins, a girl and a boy both 2 years old, when it blew up on Saturday (Feb 22) near their homes in rural northwestern Cambodia, officials said.
The accident happened in Siem Reap province’s Svay Leu district, where there had been heavy fighting in the 1980s and 1990s between Cambodian government soldiers and rebel guerrillas from the communist Khmer Rouge. The group had been ousted from power in 1979.
Muo Lisa and her male cousin, Thum Yen, lived in neighbouring homes in the remote village of Kranhuong. Their parents were doing farm work when the two toddlers apparently came across the unexploded ordinance and it detonated. Experts from the Cambodian Mine Action Center determined afterwards from fragments that it was a rocket-propelled grenade.
Old unexploded munitions are especially dangerous because their explosive contents become volatile as they deteriorate.
“Their parents went to settle on land that was a former battlefield, and they were not aware that there were any land mines or unexploded ordinance buried near their homes,” CMAC Director-General Heng Ratana said.
“It’s a pity because they were too young and they should not have died like this.”
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/cambodia-decades-old-grenade-kills-2-children-4954276
