The Travel Blog by TravelPod

A new report by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines says that 5,400 people died in 2007 due to landmines. It also says that countries such as Greece, Belarus and Turkey have still not destroyed their stockpile of landmines, even after signing an international treaty to destroy them.

The Landmine Monitor Report also says that 15 other countries (including Britain) will miss their clearance targets for 2009.

Here at TravelPod, we are an enlightened bunch. We know about the dangers of landmines, and many of the travel blogs on our site show awareness and condemnation of the problem.

Check them out:

Catmoj volunteered at the Landmine Museum in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Catmoj and landmine victim Sori

She tells the story of a rare arrogant visitor to the museum:

Rarely do we have a disinterested visitor come to The Landmine Museum, though I have had a small number of men who walk in thinking they know everything there is to know about landmines.

“Oh, I read books,” one man told me dismissively.

I carefully commented that he’ll be well aware then from his extensive reading that the casualty rate around the world for mine and ordnance accident is an average of 40 casualties … every day … and Cambodia has the dubious accolade of three of those casulaties … every day…

His expression was one of shock. Then he was ready to listen.

- from “Landmine talks and Kids Stories”, Siem Riep, Cambodia

Len_20 traveled to Thailand and Burma with the charity God’s Kids. He describes one young victim of a landmine, at a camp his organization supports for refugee children.

Another landmine victim

Then we go outside to take a group photo. But one girl stays behind. She’s sitting at the front of the room against the wall. She has a bandage on her leg and her crutches lean against the wall. I look down and see that the bandage stops near the middle of her shin bone, and there’s nothing below it. She’s missing a foot and part of her leg.
After talking with her and her teacher, I find out that she’s relatively new to the camp. She’s fourteen years old, and just a few months ago she was in Burma with her parents. She went out to pick vegetables from her parent’s garden and stepped on a landmine.

-from “Outhouses, computer labs, and landmines”, Kanchanaburi, Thailand

Rayandpaul visited this same landmine museum on their short trip to Cambodia back in 2003.

Big tank on display at the war museum

It is easy to forget the war once in Siem Reap, wrapped up in the temples, but the War Museum is a chilling reminder to the fighting. It costs $3 to get in, which includes a free guide. Our guide informed us of how the Khmer Rouge killed both his parents and his sister, and showed us three of his gunshot wounds. His left leg was lost below the knee to a landmine. We had so far unintentionally not spoken to any one about their loss at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, so it was good for us to hear his story. He was a tank driver who over the period of the fighting had suffered more than his fair share of injuries.

-from “Siem Reap”, Siem Reap, Cambodia