The United States has decided to defund a Norwegian nongovernmental organization's efforts to clear Cambodia of land mines and unexploded ordnance, causing concern that Washington might cease such funding altogether.
Heng Ratana, director-general of Cambodian Mine Action Center, said he had received a confirmation letter from Norwegian People's Aid that its funding from the U.S. government will cease by the end of this year.
The Oslo-based NGO has been supporting a project for clearing explosive remnants of war, or ERW, for many years past in eastern Cambodia, including U.S. bombs dropped during the Vietnam War in the late 1960s and early 1970s.