A group of hunters in Kompong Speu province’s Oral district on Wednesday found more than 600 bullets in a creek bed that had been left behind from fighting in the 1970s, a military police official said.
District military police commander Sam Puthdara said three or four hunters were walking along the dried-up creek bed when one of them, Im Som Ol, 41, stepped on a box of bullets half buried in the mud before finding another box nearby.
“I went to check the bullets after the villagers called me,” Mr. Puthdara said, adding that about 500 of the bullets—for heavy machine guns and SKS rifles—were still usable and were taken to the district military police station for safekeeping.
“If I had left the bullets where they were, the villagers might have taken them for their own use and could have caused damage,” he said, adding that he knew that some of the bullets were still live because he had thrown one in a fire and watched it explode.
“There was fighting here during the Khmer Rouge years, so I think there are still more bullets buried underground,” he added.
