MAG Vietnam’s Mine Action Team No. 2 (MAT 2), funded by Adopt-A-Minefield, spent all of July in Quang Hung Commune – visiting 625 houses, conducting 124 explosive ordnance disposal tasks and destroying 318 items of UXO.
Mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) have been an ever-present part of both Mr. Nguyen Van Da and Mr. Pham Van Lau’s lives since the 1940s. The elderly men, who live in Quang Hung Commune, Quang Binh Province, were injured by military ordnance while fighting against the South Vietnamese regime and their allies during the American War. The area was also fire-bombed by the French during the 1940s.
Dr. Da, 70, a retired civil servant, was wounded by shrapnel when an American cluster bomb exploded above his head during a battle in 1969. The former soldier has suffered chronic headaches ever since. Mr. Lau, 76, was wounded in the leg in 1968 and received field treatment.
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Technicians from MAG Vietnam's Mine Action Team No.2 (MAT2) testing their equipment |
Once Vietnam was reunified in 1975, the men expected to be able to return to their families and safely get on with their lives. However, the end of the war did not mean the end of the risks posed by the remnants of conflict. For the past 30 years they have lived in an area that is highly contaminated by UXO, due to the number of battles fought between southern and northern troops.
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| MAG’s current operational capacity in Quang Binh Province consists of four teams. There are another five teams in Quang Tri Province |
MAG Vietnam’s Mine Action Team No. 2 (MAT 2), funded by Adopt-A-Minefield, spent all of July in Quang Hung Commune. The 11 male and female technicians, supported by medics and drivers, conducted a house-to-house search of the villages of Hung Loc and Tu Loan for all known and reported UXO.
By the end of the month the team had visited 625 houses, conducted 124 explosive ordnance disposal tasks and destroyed 318 items of UXO.
Mr. Da and his 70-year-old wife Mrs. Han, who said she narrowly escaped being killed by an air-dropped bomb in 1968, watched as two MAG technicians carried away 10 cluster bombs from the land surrounding their house in Tu Loan.
Up until MAG’s arrival the couple was too afraid to grow any crops on the land around their house, and were forced to survive on Mr. Da’s small pension, purchasing all fruits and vegetables in the local market. Now that MAT 2 has removed all reported UXO the couple plans to plant sweet potatoes and cassava in the garden.
“The local people are very excited by MAG’s work,” says Mrs. Han, through a MAG interpreter. “There should be no more accidents in the future and everyone should be able to cultivate their own land safely.”
“The team works hard,” she adds. “They work in the rain and the sun and are very enthusiastic in letting the villagers know about the dangers of bombs left from the war, as well as listening to our concerns about UXO that has been lying here for decades.”
Mr Lau and his wife, Mrs. Nung, 75, were both farmers in Hoa Binh, a village MAT 2 completed searching in late June, 2007. In 1968 the area was severely bombed and the couple’s house was set on fire and destroyed. In 2002 two children were killed while playing a game throwing pebbles at an item of UXO.
The couple still survive on the rice grown by their families, exactly as they did before the wars. However, since the 1970s when the men started returning to the land, no farmer dared to plough or dig too deeply in their paddy fields, because of the risk of striking a bomb or mine.
Mr Lau said: “This area was contaminated by mines and bombs. We hope MAG will clear all of them so that local people and their families can make a living safely.”