2 Cambodian experts were killed as they attempted to remove an anti-tank mine from a rice field

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Two Cambodian deminers were killed Thursday as they attempted to remove an anti-tank mine left over from the country's nearly three decades of war and disorder, authorities said.

The Cambodian Mines Action Center, the agency that oversees demining operations, said the two men had been working to clear mines from a farmer's rice field in northwestern Oddar Meanchey province, which was an area of heavy fighting between the government and insurgent Khmer Rouge forces in the 1980s.

The two, identified as Pov Nepin and Ouen Channara, died at the scene after the mine they were working on removing exploded, the agency said.

''This is the loss of professional officers who have contributed to the cause of peace, security and the developing of Cambodia and the people,'' CMAC said in a statement.

Some 4 million to 6 million land mines and other unexploded munitions are estimated to have littered Cambodia's countryside during the decades of conflict that ended in 1998.

Since the end of the fighting in Cambodia, nearly 20,000 people have been killed and about 45,000 have been injured by leftover war explosives.

As extensive work has continued on getting rid of the mines and unexploded ordnance, casualties have dropped from 858 in 2000 to 32 in 2023, according to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines' 2024 annual report.

Cambodian deminers are among the world's most experienced, and several thousand have been sent in the past decade under U.N. auspices to work in Africa and the Middle East. Cambodia in 2022 began training deminers from Ukraine, which has been suffering from a growing number of landmines and other unexploded munitions since the full-scale Russian invasion in February of that year.