Despite the fact that the town of Pailin on the Cambodian-Thai border is full of unexploded mines, many still call it home. Gispeng, the manager of a company responsible for defusing mines in Pailin, said before the deminers came to the town, local residents had already been building houses and planting their crops in the minefield. The company expects to complete the work of clearing the 3-ha Potangsu minefield by end of July, and return the land to local residents.

But how do local residents spend their time living with the mines over the past few years? How could they lead a peaceful life seeing that their neighbours are being injured or killed by the mines? What has kept them living in the minefiled? Don't they have other better options?

Guan Jonglan, 53, moved here with her husband, a border soldier, from Siem Reap province. They have seven children, all living in a house about eight metres wide by 50 metres long. More than 20 mines used to be planted under the ground, but they have all been removed by her husband with a knife.

"My husbabd used to be a soldier. Although he has no experience defusing mines, he has to remove them so that we can live here safely."

Guan recalls the moments she had to tread on this heavily mined land. She said she was very frightened, walking behind her husband with her feet stepping on her husband's footprints. At that time they were living under the tree, as the house they are living today was still not yet built then.

She said, in order to look for land for plantation, they had to clear the minefield.

"Although we knew that this was a minefield, and we were indeed very scared, we still had to find a way to live here."

"We later learned that a mine defusing organisation would come over to clear the mines. We were very happy, as we would be able to plant something on a 'clean' land in the future."

Another resident, 26-year-old Supo who moved here four years ago with his uncle from Kampong Thom province, said he was living here with his wife and a 6-year-old daughter. When he tried to plough the land with a tractor this spring, he was seriously injured by an exploding anti-tank mine.

"I was very scared, because I couldn't see the mines. But because I am poor, I have to stay back here."

After that tragic incident, he has been very careful when walking around the area, and would follow only the red colour pillars planted by HALO. When the work of defusing the mines is completed later, they will then be able to walk around without anything to worry about.

HALO's manager in Cambodia Ting Bot said, the deminers have to work from seven in the morning until three in the afternoon, and have to rest for 10 minutes after every 30 minutes. They have one hour of lunch break at 11.30 a.m.

He said, "The deminers work under the scorching sun, and you can imagine how tough it is to work for five and a half hours here every day."

He also pointed out that following advancement in defusing technology, the risks deminers have to encounter have been drastically reduced. The latest US-manufactured metal detector can tell whether something planted 30cm under the ground is a land mine or merely a piece of metallic object. Having said that, in order to protect their lives, the deminers have to put on bullet-proof helmets and jackets.

Yan Tet, who has one year of experience working with HALO as a deminer, said he has so far detected more than 20 mines. He admitted that he was scared each time a mine was detected.

Although he has some real fear for land mines, after going through the on job training, he has become more and more confident of metal detectors, and each time he works in the minefield, he surrenders his life to these metal detectors.

He said because he does not have any professional qualification, he has no choice but to join HALO's mine defusing training course. (Cambodia Sin Chew Daily)