Farmer finds cache of rifles in B Meanchey

Ten rusted-out rifles, their wooden stocks totally deteriorated, were discovered by a farmer digging in Banteay Meanchey province’s Svay Chek district on Friday evening, police said yesterday.

Deputy Svay Chek District Police inspector Song Sokhon said the weapons – “CK” rifles, thought to date back to the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia in the 1980s – were in Phkoam commune, south of Tadoul village.

The owner of the farm where the rifles were found, who Sokhon identified as Van Voun, made the discovery while conducting his annual tilling for cassava plants, and Sokhon attributed the find to the continued cultivation of the plot.

“Because Voun [tills] the farm every year, the land started to become lower and the space got deeper,” Sokhon said. “He first found only one gun. Since he has his own tractor, he kept on digging and found a total of 10 guns and three empty ammunition [magazines]. These weapons are tainted and broken. They could not be used.”

Sokhon added that the weapons had likely come from China, which produced “CKC” rifles, derived from the Soviet SKS.

“These CK guns are similar to CKC guns, but our expert claimed that these were imported from China since around the 80s. We are now keeping them in the administrative police office of Pkhoam commune, and waiting for the provincial commissioner to destroy them or keep them,” he said.