Japan and Cambodia to demine Ukraine
Kyiv • UNN
Japan and Cambodia will cooperate to provide demining assistance and training to Ukraine, with Japan providing a large demining machine and Cambodia training Ukrainian personnel in its operation.
Japan will cooperate with Cambodia to demine Ukraine and other war-torn countries. This was announced on Saturday, July 6, by Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa during a visit to the Cambodian Mine Action Center, the Associated Press reports UNN.
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She emphasized that Cambodia is a leader in mine action around the world.
"Cambodia is an important partner of Japan in its global mine action efforts. I am also confident that Cambodia will make a great contribution to raising awareness of the inhumanity of anti-personnel landmines as a country affected by them," she said.
Yoko Kamikawa noted that as part of the Japan-Cambodia Mine Action Initiative, Japan will provide full-scale assistance in humanitarian demining in Ukraine.
"Next week, we will provide Ukraine with a large demining machine, and next month, here in Cambodia, we will train Ukrainian personnel on how to operate this machine," the minister explained.
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Cambodian sappers are among the most experienced in the world, and over the past decade, several thousand of them have been deployed under the auspices of the United Nations to work in Africa and the Middle East.
At one time, millions of mines were placed on the territory of Cambodia, where the civil war lasted for almost 30 years. After the war ended in 1998, the country, together with Japan, began demining its territory. Since the end of hostilities in Cambodia, nearly 20,000 people have been killed and about 45,000 injured by explosives left over from the war.
In 2022, Cambodia began training deminers from Ukraine, which also suffers from a high density of mines and other unexploded ordnance on its territory.
Cambodia was one of nearly 100 UN member states that co-sponsored a resolution condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
