N urses at unexploded ordnance (UXO) clearance sites in Laos are sometimes thought to be doing an easy job compared to the rest of their team.
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UXO is detonated in a field in Xieng Khuang province by a UXO Lao clearance team. | Mrs Daovieng Osavanh, a field nurse for UXO Lao in Phin district, Savannakhet province. |
In each of the Lao National UXO Programme (UXO Lao) clearance teams there are 11 people, including a nurse and a driver.
Some say that the nurses' work is undemanding because they stay in the medical tent while the UXO clearers are out doing their difficult and dangerous jobs.
“Please don't think that nursing work is easy here,” said Mrs Daovieng Osavanh, 30, a field nurse for UXO Lao in Phin district, Savannakhet province.
“I have done this work for ten years, and I am very proud of my job, but I have never thought of it as easy, as some people seem to think it is.”
She explained that she is the first person to treat the clearers in the fields if they are injured in bomb detonations, before they are sent to the nearest hospital.
Mrs Daovieng also checks the health of every clearer in her team every morning before they start work.
“Every day, I stand at my medical tent and keep an eye on all the clearers as they go about their work, until they are finished. Although I sometimes feel tired in the hot weather or cold in the rain, I never complain about it,” she said.
She takes her job very seriously because clearers can be killed or injured at any time, if bombs explode while they are trying to detect, clear or detonate them.
“Many clearers are killed or injured by UXO exploding while they work, but it has never happened with my team since UXO Lao was established 1996.”
To avoid becoming victims of horrific accidents, clearers have to work carefully and responsibly. “I hope an accident never happens to any clearer in my team,” she said.
In her work over the past decade, the worst that has happened is that a few people in the team have come down with dengue fever and some have been bitten by snakes, centipedes, scorpions, spiders and bees.
Nobody has died from these bites, she added.
In the 14 years since UXO clearance began, about 25,000 hectares of land have been cleared for agricultural use and development. It is estimated that about one percent of all UXO-contaminated land in Laos has been cleared, according to the National Regulatory Authority for the UXO/Mine Action Sector in Laos.
From 1964 to 1973, over 2 million tonnes of ordnance was dropped on the country by US warplanes, including around 288 million cluster munitions. About 75 million unexploded bombs were left across Laos after the Indochina war ended.
The majority of bombs used were sub-cluster munitions, know to locals as ‘bombies'. As a result of the war, Laos is the most heavily bombed country per capita in the world.
By Khonesavanh Latsaphao
