PHNOM PENH: Japan will work with Cambodia to remove land mines from Ukraine and other war-torn countries, Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa said during a visit to Phnom Penh on Saturday.
Millions of land mines were laid in Cambodia during the nearly three decades of conflict that ended in 1998, with tens of thousands of people killed or maimed over the years.
The Southeast Asian country is widely regarded as a world leader in land mine countermeasures and has been working with Japan to clear the weapons since 1998.
“Cambodia is an essential partner in Japan’s global land mine removal efforts,” Kamikawa said at a press conference.
“I am confident Cambodia will contribute greatly to raising awareness of the inhumanity of anti-personnel land mines as a country that suffered from them.”
The minister said Japan would provide Ukraine with a large demining machine next week, and in August would train Ukrainian agencies in Cambodia on how to use the equipment.
Heng Ratana, director general of the Cambodian Mine Action Center (CMAC), told reporters his organization and local deminers were “proud of this important initiative and strongly support the new strategy of the cooperation.”
“We are glad to take part in sharing experiences with countries that have problems with land mines and remnants of war in accordance with the policy of the (Cambodian) government,” he added.
Deaths caused by land mines occur frequently among civilians and soldiers in Ukraine, which has been littered with mines and explosive remnants since it was invaded by Russia in 2022.
According to Human Rights Watch, land mines have been documented in 11 of Ukraine’s 27 regions.
Russian forces are known to have used at least 13 types of anti-personnel mines since February 2022, the organization said.
Cambodia, meanwhile, is still littered with discarded ammunition and arms from decades of war starting in the 1960s.
Deaths from mines and unexploded ordnance are common, with around 20,000 fatalities since 1979, and twice that number injured.
In August last year, thousands of pieces of unexploded ordnance left over from the war were unearthed inside a school in the country’s northeast.
In 2018, an Australian and a Cambodian were killed when war-era ordnance exploded during a demining training exercise in southern Cambodia.
The government has vowed to clear all mines and unexploded ordnance by 2025.
Japan, Cambodia to help remove land mines from Ukraine
https://arab.news/5m55m
Japan, Cambodia to help remove land mines from Ukraine
- The minister said Japan would provide Ukraine with a large demining machine next week
- Deaths caused by land mines occur frequently among civilians and soldiers in Ukraine
130 kidnapped Nigerian schoolchildren freed: government
- The religiously diverse African country of 230 million people is the scene of myriad conflicts that have killed both Christians and Muslims
ABUJA: Nigerian authorities have secured the release of 130 kidnapped schoolchildren taken by gunmen from a Catholic school in November, a presidential spokesman said Sunday, after 100 were freed earlier this month.
“Another 130 abducted Niger state pupils released, none left in captivity,” Sunday Dare said in a post on X, accompanied by a photo of smiling children.
In late November, hundreds of students and staff were kidnapped from St. Mary’s co-educational boarding school in north-central Niger state.
The attack came as the country buckled under a wave of mass abductions reminiscent of the infamous 2014 Boko Haram kidnapping of schoolgirls in Chibok.
The west African country suffers from multiple interlinked security concerns, from jihadists in the northeast to armed “bandit” gangs in the northwest.
A UN source told AFP that “the remaining set of girls/secondary school students will be taken to Minna,” the capital of Niger state, on Tuesday.
The exact number of those kidnapped, and those who remain in captivity, has been unclear since the attack on the school, located in the rural hamlet of Papiri.
The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) said 315 students and staff were kidnapped.
Some 50 escaped immediately afterwards, and on December 7 the government secured the release of around 100.
That would leave about 165 thought to remain in captivity.
But a statement from President Bola Tinubu at the time put the remaining people being held at 115.
- Spate of mass kidnappings -
It has not been made public who seized the children from their boarding school, or how the government secured their release.
Though kidnappings for ransom are a common way for criminals and armed groups to make quick cash, a spate of mass abductions in November put an uncomfortable spotlight on Nigeria’s already grim security situation.
Assailants across the country kidnapped two dozen Muslim schoolgirls, 38 church worshippers and a bride and her bridesmaids, with farmers, women and children also taken hostage.
The kidnappings came as Nigeria faces a diplomatic offensive from the United States, where President Donald Trump has alleged that there were mass killings of Christians that amounted to a “genocide.”
The Nigerian government and independent analysts reject that framing, which has long been used by the Christian right in the United States and Europe.
The religiously diverse African country of 230 million people is the scene of myriad conflicts that have killed both Christians and Muslims.
