Three decades of peace have put Vietnam and Lao PDR firmly on the road to recovery, with many people now reaping benefits from living in a growing economy. However, this is only part of the picture – as some sectors of the countries prosper, thousands of poor people in rural areas are still living with the threat of death or injury caused by accidents involving unexploded ordnance (UXO).
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MAG in Vietnam |
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• MAG has been clearing land and removing UXO (including cluster munitions) from villages and towns since 1999, employing and training Vietnamese men and women for a cost-effective, adaptable, civilian response to the ongoing problems. • MAG removed and destroyed 5,366 cluster munitions in 2007 – 22% of the total UXO destroyed in the country during the year. |
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For latest news, downloads and multimedia galleries, please click here: MAG Vietnan |
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MAG in Lao PDR |
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• MAG has worked in Lao PDR since 1994, making it the most established and experienced humanitarian UXO clearance operator in the country. • In the first quarter of 2008, MAG Lao located and destroyed 2,590 items of UXO, around 80% of which were cluster bomb submunitions. |
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For latest news, downloads and multimedia galleries, please click here: MAG Lao microsite |
Included in the huge amount of UXO that still contaminates the soil is the large number of cluster munitions that failed to explode and still put the local population at risk, predominantly the poor, uneducated, rural dwellers in remote areas of Vietnam and Lao PDR.
Cluster munitions were dropped during prolonged bombing campaigns on both Lao PDR and Vietnam from 1965 to 1973, with bombing runs continuing in Vietnam until 1975.
By then 96.9 million cluster munitions had been delivered by 80,213 aircraft, and in Lao PDR at least 250 million cluster submunitions were dropped.
Using a minimum failure rate of 5 per cent and a maximum of 30 per cent, it is estimated there would have been between 4.9 and 29.1 million unexploded cluster submunitions in Vietnam by the end of the war, and in Lao PDR at least 13 to 78 million submunitions remained unexploded upon impact.
These remaining cluster munitions still pose a threat resulting in a demand for a clearance capacity offered by humanitarian mine agencies such as MAG, especially in the highland areas along the border between Vietnam and Lao PDR.
In some areas the cluster munitions threat has actually increased due to a high demand for new agricultural land and growing numbers of people collecting UXO as scrap metal.
While reliable data is not available in both countries, estimates show that cluster munitions account for well over 50 per cent of all the explosive remnants of war (ERW) casualties in Lao PDR.
In Vietnam, there have been an estimated 34,550 to 52,350 post-conflict cluster submunition casualties. Marginalised ethnic minority groups also make up a disproportionate number of the casualty figures in Vietnam (14.6 per cent of casualties, but only 7.9 per cent of the population).
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BLU 3/B cluster submuntion |
- Download MAG's Impact of cluster munitions booklet in pdf format
Links:
- SPECIAL REPORT: Responding to the Tet Offensive legacy
- Blast from the past [MAG's innovative new project in Lao PDR]
- High-risk trade [an article exploring the UXO scrap trade in Lao PDR]
- Bomb Harvest movie [external site]
- BBC Radio World Service audio: 'Bomb Hunters' [external site]
8 December 08
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