Landmine victims put Cambodia on map

Sporting success is an impossible dream for most people in Cambodia, where poverty and the scars of civil war are part of daily life.

But one group of athletes from the cash-strapped country are on their way to becoming world beaters.

They are not celebrities or highly-paid professionals, but former fighters in a brutal conflict who lost limbs to landmines and unexploded bombs.

Cambodia's disabled men's volleyball team are the champions of the Asia-Pacific region and have risen to number five in the world rankings.

"These guys are seriously fit, they really know how to work hard, and they work with their prosthesis," said Australian Christopher Minko, who has been involved in disabled volleyball in Cambodia for more than a decade.

"In this country, disabled people have to stand up on their own. Hopefully, we can push this team to be number one in the world," he told Reuters.

Since Minko started a national volleyball league for amputees, his teams have won gold at the 2002 FESPIC Games - Asia's equivalent of the Paralympics - and climbed up the world rankings.

Slowly emerging from decades of civil war including the 1970s Khmer Rouge "killing fields" genocide, Cambodia is littered with an estimated 6 million landmines, leaving it with one of the world's highest disability rates.

The league's 160 players are among some 40,000 "chonpika", or amputees, in Cambodia where one in every 290 people have been permanently disabled by landmines.

Although they fought on opposing sides during three decades of civil war, San Mao and Som Chak are team mates who have put their grim past behind them.

"We are the victims of the war, but we are friends now," said San Mao, a former Khmer Rouge guerilla who has a prosthetic leg after stepping on a mine while transporting munitions.

"When we chat, we chat for fun. We skip all the bad things."

Som Chak, 43, lost his right leg fighting the Khmer Rouge along the Thai-Cambodia border. He turned to sport to become part of a community.

"My friends in the hospital told me 'look around you, many people lost legs too, so move on,'" he said.

"I didn't want people to laugh at me because I couldn't do anything. I don't want anyone to insult us."

Som Chak said he hoped their success could raise awareness about landmines to prevent more of his people from becoming victims.

"My message to mine-producing countries is stop this," said Som Chak.

"I don't want more people to lose their legs like us."

In November, Cambodia will stage the World Organisation for Volleyball Disabled's (WOVD) Phnom Penh World Cup, which will be the first time the country has hosted a global sports event.

The tournament will be presided over by the kingdom's long-serving Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge soldier who lost an eye in the final assault on Phnom Penh in 1975.

The Cambodian strongman is a keen golfer and volleyball player, and regards himself as a disabled athlete.

Volleyball for amputees is catching on in Cambodia, with 17 clubs taking part in the national league.

There is even a team comprised entirely of ex-Khmer Rouge rebels in Anlong Veng, the final resting place of "Brother Number One" Pol Pot, the architect of the 1970s "Year Zero" revolution, which claimed an estimated 1.7 million lives in four years.

Chim Phan, 39, said sport is his passion and he will not let his disability get in the way of his success.

"I love sport, it makes my body strong," said Chim Phan, who competes in a number of sports events, including marathons.

"If I don't play, it's like I'm sick."