Cost of Mine Removal - Cambodia

The following excerpt originates from the "Reporter's Notebook" section of the November 25, 1996 issue of Defense Week.

"Take 45 people in Cambodia and have them spend seven months searching ever so carefully for landmines.

It was neither cheap nor quick. In the example he studies, J.D. Nicoud, professor at the Laboratoire de Microinformatique in Lausanne, Switzerland, said deminers found 265 mines and 943 unexploded ordinance.

Overall cost? About $378,000, or $1,400 a mine; $5 for each square meter of cleared land, Nicoud told a mines conference at the Naval Postgraduate School last week. Almost one-third of the money went for international personnel, salaries and benefits; 27 percent went for radios, computers and other equipment; and 20 percent for metal detectors.

Local costs were quite small; 4.5 percent for local salaries; and 8 percent for administrative costs."