Phnom Penh, Apr 4 (IANS): Cambodia needs $138 million for the next two years to achieve its landmine-free target by 2025, a top official said here on Tuesday.

"Of this sum, if the Cambodian government provides $30 million for each year for 2024 and 2025 as it did in 2023, we will have $60 million of the $138 million," Ly Thuch, first vice president of the Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authorities (CMAA), said during a technical working group meeting on mine action in Phnom Penh.

Thus, he said, the Southeast Asian country is looking to international donors to contribute another $78 million for this humanitarian work for 2024 and 2025, reports Xinhua news agency.

"To this end, we welcome any announcements regarding fresh funding," Thuch said.

"With your generous support, we can achieve our National Mine Action Strategy vision of 2025 as well as the Ottawa Treaty obligation to make Cambodia mine-free."

The official said the above-mentioned budget is for clearing the remaining landmines on an area of 563 square kilometres only, as the kingdom still needs other funds to remove 1,322 square kilometres of land contaminated with cluster munitions and other explosive remnants of war (ERWs).

Cambodia is one of the countries worst affected by landmines, cluster munitions and 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.

According to Yale University, between 1965 and 1973, the US dropped some 230,516 bombs on 113,716 sites in Cambodia.

Thuch said from 1992 to 2022, roughly 2,579 square kilometres of explosive hazard-contaminated land has been released for productive use such as agriculture, resettlement, roads, schools and other social infrastructure.

According to the CMAA, from 1979 to 2022, landmine, cluster bomb and ERW explosions had claimed 19,818 lives and either injured or amputated 45,187 others in Cambodia.