Nearly a decade and a half after the end of the war, Laos is still working hard to clear its land of unexploded ordinance (UXO), reflecting the dedication of the government to its humanitarian goals and the alleviation of poverty.
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A UXO worker clears remnants of a bomb from a rice field in Laos |
The Lao National UXO programme (UXO Lao) of the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare conducts five different types of clearance operations: roving clearance, surface area clearance, shallow area clearance, deep area clearance and deep search.
All serve the purpose of clearing the land of UXO so that the local people of the poorer villages might use it for agriculture. According to the National Regulatory Authority UXO/Mine Action Sector in Laos (NRA), 41 of the 47 poorest districts nationwide are still contaminated with UXO.
Laos' UXO clearance teams focus on public land and buildings such as schools, markets and health care centres. In addition it also removes sub-surface explosives from sites where government development projects have been proposed, such as roads and irrigation canals.
The public relations officer of the NRA, Mr Bounpheng Sisawath, said that when people see UXO items in the rice fields of nearby villages, they can tell UXO Lao to come and clear it.
Roving clearance tends to UXO that has been sighted in a particular area, and therefore reduces the risks to people living in the contaminated areas, he told Vientiane Times .
“The teams respond to emergency calls from local people. This is what happens when daily life is affected by the presence of UXO and there is an immediate threat to people and their property,” he explained.
“They react to situations in which people have already found UXO and marked it, and when the explosives are seen above ground in fields or villages. Some of the operations are planned by UXO Lao, following community visits,” said Mr Bounpheng.
The surveying department of UXO Lao is responsible for the data collection that enables the team to establish which areas need priority clearance.
The members of the survey team use a combination of GPS units and hand drawn maps to pin point the exact location of the UXO. The teams always work in pairs and often travel to remote areas on off-road motorbikes.
“Their communication with the villagers is invaluable to the process of identifying the areas of contamination,” he said. He also added that the surveys are an integral part of the clearance operation as they provide the office with the information they need to prioritise certain areas and plan the clearance efforts.
“The surveys provide important data for the roving team to plan what equipment and resources they will need to complete their work quickly and efficiently,” he said.
A 2008 evaluation of the UXO sector showed that priority agricultural land could be cleared within 16 years at the present rate of clearance. With additional resources that could be reduced to 10 years.
From 1996-2009, more than 1 million items of UXO were destroyed, including big bombs, cluster sub-munitions, mines and other UXO fragments. The NRA also reported that during the same period over 23,000 hectares of land was cleared for agricultural use and development.
From 1964 to 1973, over 2 million tonnes of ordnance was dropped on the country by US warplanes, made up of 18 different types of bombs and including around 288 million cluster munitions. About 75 million unexploded bombs were left across Laos after the war ended.
Laos is the most heavily bombed country per capita in the world. The bombs that were used were sub-cluster munitions, know to the local people as ‘bombies'. By Khonesavanh Latsaphao Vientiane Times, 2010 | 
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