Unexploded bombies litter ten provinces in Laos

Lao children in rural areas have fallen victims of unexploded ordnances dropped by US warplanes during the Vietnam War more than older generations because they do not know the dangers of playing with UXOs.

Laos was the most heavily bombed country in the world. During the Vietnam War, US planes dropped more than two million bombs on Laos, mostly along the Ho Chi Minh trail to stop the Communist North Vietnamese supply routes. To this day, thirty years after the war, those war legacies still maim and kill Lao people.

Although UXO-Lao has been able to recover more than 600,000 unexploded ordnances from over 6,000 hectares of land since its founding in 1997 with funding from foreign assistances, about two-thirds of the bombed areas in ten of Laos' 16 provinces remain to be cleared.

It is estimated that at the current rate of recovery and with only about $4 million of foreign assistance a year, it will take a decade for Laos to clear all its land of UXOs.

Listen to our Laos Today report for more details.