2 toddlers killed in rocket-propelled grenade explosion in NW Cambodia

Two toddlers were killed in a rocket-propelled grenade explosion in northwest Cambodia's Siem Reap province, a mine clearance chief said on Sunday.

Heng Ratana, director-general of the Cambodian Mine Action Center, said the war-left 66-mm (B-63) shell exploded on Saturday in Kranhong village of Svay Leu district's Ta Siem commune.

"Two children, a boy and a girl, were killed in the unexploded ordnance explosion," he wrote on social media, adding that one died at the scene and the other in hospital. He said both were two years old.

According to a witness, who is the father of a victim, the two children were playing on the ground digging soil and might have hit the grenade with an object that triggered the blast, he said.

Cambodia is one of the countries worst affected by landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERWs). An estimated 4 million to 6 million landmines and other munitions had been left over from three decades of war and internal conflicts that ended in 1998.

A Cambodian official report showed that from 1979 to 2024, landmine and ERW explosions had claimed 19,834 lives and maimed 45,252 others in the Southeast Asian country.