This story is not news to anyone who reads this blog, or folks who have seen Skye Fitzgerald's film BOMBHUNTERS. CNN is reporting on unexploded ordnance scavengers in recognition of LANDMINE AWARENESS DAY in Cambodia.
Watching him work is unnerving. Alerted by the detector, he digs with his hoe and finds the broken tail of a mortar shell.Picking it up with his bare hand, he tosses it into his bag and calmly carries on scanning the ground.
"I usually don't know if it is a land mine, bomb or unexploded ordnance," he said. "But one thing I am sure of is there must be some metal."
If lucky, he said, he can collect 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of scrap metal a day; on a bad day he might fetch 2 kilograms (4 pounds).
One kilogram (2.2 pounds) of scrap steel sells for 1,000 riel (US$0.25; euro0.20), but aluminum and bronze pieces fetch 3,000 riel (US$0.75; euro0.60) and 5,000 riel (US$1.2; euro0.90) respectively.
"This is a very dangerous occupation that we have constantly tried to prevent," said CMAC's Khem Sophoan. He said scavengers often try to evade authorities.
Read the rest of the article on CNN.com here.
This is not a practice exclusive to Cambodia by any means... I blogged a couple years ago about a boy we ran into scavenging metal along the highway in Vietnam here.
Below is a trailer for Skye Fitzgerald's BOMBHUNTERS on YouTube featuring a group of men unearthing a bomb to dismantle for scrap:
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