Blood shortage hits Cambodia

Blood shortage hits Cambodia

PHNOM PENH (Reuter): Cambodian medical teams face a shortage
of blood for soldiers wounded while fighting Khmer Rouge
guerrillas, media reports and officials said yesterday.

An Information Ministry spokesman, citing latest casualty
figures, told a news briefing 28 government soldiers had been
killed and 94 wounded in the northwest between Feb. 12 and 18.

"During the same period, six civilians were killed and three
others wounded and 26 were captured by the Khmer Rouge,"
spokesman Sieng Lapresse said.

The Rasmei Kampuchea newspaper quoted an officer at the
military hospital in the northwest Cambodian provincial capital
of Battambang as saying he was worried about the blood shortage.

The officer, Gen. Ly Vanark, said supplies of medicine were
insufficient and some of the wounded were operated on without
anesthetic in a hospital overcrowded with almost 400 soldiers.

The Health Ministry Undersecretary of State, Dy Narongrith,
confirmed there were blood shortages due to a lack of donors.

"Our people don't understand the importance of donating blood
because they are afraid of losing energy."

Government troops have suffered significant casualties, mostly
from land mines, in efforts to dislodge the Khmer Rouge from
positions in the northwest since the beginning of the year.

The Khmer Rouge, who ruled by terror between 1975 and 1979,
have waged a low-level insurgency against the coalition
government since turning their backs on a 1991 peace pact and
rejecting the results of UN-run elections in 1993.