War-left U.S. bomb discovered in southern Cambodia: official

PHNOM PENH, May 23 (Xinhua) -- A Cambodian Mine Action Center's (CMAC) bomb disposal team has safely removed a war-left U.S.-made bomb in southern Kandal province, a mine clearance chief said on Monday.

CMAC Director-general Heng Ratana said the team discovered the unexploded bomb and deactivated the MK 82 aerial bomb on Friday after receiving reports of the bomb from local authorities.

"It's not far from the capital Phnom Penh, a 230-kg MK 82 bomb, dropped from a warplane, was uncovered in Rolaing Ken commune, Kandal Stueng district of Kandal province," he said in a Facebook post.

"Our experts have defused the bomb and transported it to the CMAC's disposal center safely," he said.

It was the second U.S. aerial bomb that Cambodia found this month after an AN-M66 aerial bomb weighing 2,000 pounds (907 kg) was discovered from the Chaktomuk River opposite the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh.

According to Yale University, between 1965 and 1973, the United States had dropped some 230,516 bombs on 113,716 sites in Cambodia.

Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen wrote in his book, "Hun Sen: 10 Years of Cambodia's Journey, 1979-1989" that the U.S. bombings on Cambodia caused "tens of thousands of civilian casualties because of this vicious undeclared war."

A report from the Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority (CMAA) showed that from 1979 to March 2022, unexploded ordnance and landmines had killed 19,816 people and injured 45,175 others in the Southeast Asian nation.