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NEWS ROUNDUP February 2014

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2/27/2014
Little help for UXO victims in Laos

Around 25 percent of villages in Laos are contaminated by unexploded ordnance (UXOs), mainly from US bombing missions between 1964 and 1973, according to the Lao National Unexploded Ordnance Programme, and while UXO casualties have fallen sharply in recent years there is little support for UXO victims, whose injuries can drastically affect their families. IRIN has the story.

2/24/2014
RWE Calls in Bomb Squad

Three pieces of unexploded ordnance have been discovered at the construction site of RWE’s 576MW Gwynt y Mor offshore wind farm off Wales.
The developer is preparing to remove the objects, referred to as UXO, from the seabed in Liverpool Bay and construction work is continuing. More at RENews.

2/24/2014
Disarmco Turns to Crowdfunding After Risk-Averse Investors Reject Life-Saving Technology.

With more than 120m landmines stored and deployed in places of conflict and post-conflict around the world and 20,000 victims of landmines every year, a British company is set to tackle the problem head on with its pyrotechnic torch technology after raising funds on equity crowdfunding platform Crowdcube.
Formed in 2012, Disarmco, raised almost £150,000 against its original £120,000 target and attracted 126 investors, turned to crowdfunding after its earlier efforts to attract investors through more traditional means failed. Read more Here.

2/21/2014
Unexploded ordnance found, disposed of in San Pedro Conservation area

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers found two pieces of unexploded ordnance (UXO) during the closure of two sites within the San Pedro National Conservation area. According to a BLM release the areas had been closed since November 2013 for an investigation and study, the sites were formerly used by the U.S. military and located outside Ft. Huachuca. Via TucsonNewsNow.com

2/20/2014
Have You Ever Dropped A Glass On The Floor And It Did Not Break?

Two-and-a-half years after the fall of the Gaddafi regime, Libya continues to suffer from a wide proliferation of explosive items and small arms that threaten civilians.
Amongst those most at risk of coming into contact with landmines, arms and ammunition left behind after fighting are curious children, people wanting to protect themselves, and scrap collectors looking to make a living. Thompson-Reuters has More.

2/13/2014
Landmine, Unexploded Ordnance Deaths Drop by Half in 2013

Deaths from landmines and other unexploded ordnance (UXO) dropped by nearly half from 43 in 2012 to 22 last year, according to the government’s latest casualty figures, the largest drop in recent years.
Total casualties also dropped 40 percent over the same period, from 186 in 2012 to 111 last year, according to the last monthly casualty report for 2013 from the Cambodian Mine Action Authority. Read more at The Cambodia Daily.

2/12/2014
U.S. to Increase UXO Support for Laos

The U.S. government will increase assistance to Laos’ unexploded ordnance (UXO) sector, local press reported Wednesday.
How much of an increase is still being considered but there will be no decrease of support for Laos’ work in surveying, clearing, assisting victims and raising awareness of UXO, U.S. ambassador to Laos Daniel Clune was quoted by state-run daily Vientiane Times as saying. Read more at Chihan.com.

 

2/2/2014
Unexploded munitions a threat in Sudan’s Darfur

From aircraft bombs to cluster munitions and grenades, the Ordnance Disposal Office of the international peacekeeping force in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur has found and destroyed them all. Read the full story from The Times of India here.

 

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From the Book – Meeting Bich, 10, UXO Accident Survivor

Bich in the Hospital
Bich in the Hospital
Bich in the hospital, for the second time

UXO accidents have killed and injured more than 20,000 Laotians since the end of war in 1975. This is an excerpt from the book Eternal Harvest. 

————-

We meet a young boy named Bich in the Phonsavanh hospital. Part of his face is blasted off, and his arm is fractured.

“He went to plow the field and he hit something. We don’t know what,” his mother, Man, tells us in tears. “I heard the explosion and some people came to get me.”

She knew about UXO, about the dangers in the dirt, but what can her family do? They have to grow food. She has seven children to feed. “I worry about the others. It’s very difficult because we cannot see the UXO,” she says.

Bombs hide in the earth that people tread and dig and plant and reap every year. Some weeks, a nurse tells us, the hospital gets two or three UXO victims; other weeks, it gets none. Most victims who come to the hospital survive. But many never make it that far. They die at home or in the field or forest where the accident occurs.

Bich’s story is hardly unusual, but it is not widely known in the country that likely made the bomb that hurt him. To this day, Laotians continue to die while playing in their yards, plowing their fields, tending their cattle. As villagers clear new land for planting, buried bombs explode. When farmers light their fields afire, shrapnel sometimes rains upon nearby roofs. At times, Laos still sounds like a country at war. This story has an even bleaker side.

As the global price of metal creeps upward, villagers gamble their lives on the chance to unearth valuable scrap. This is a country in which most people earn just a few dollars a day. And most people farm. But in some parts of Laos, the earth holds a profitable crop, sown long ago in war. While some dig with hopes of making money, others dig with hopes of securing safer land. Every day, bomb disposal teams scour the terrain, staking rows of string to the ground and slowly walking the grid with metal detectors. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth—it’s a meticulous job that can take days, even weeks, to cover an acre.

At any given time, twelve companies and humanitarian organizations have teams in the field, scattered across the country, looking for bombs. When a technician gets a signal, the spot is marked and later investigated by hand. Someone has to dig down and backward, slowly inching toward the source of the signal without making any sudden, harsh moves that could jolt a piece of ordnance and cause it to explode. Most signals end with a rusty nail or a twisted piece of bomb casing. But sometimes the team unearths a bomb, still armed, still ready to blow.

It could take decades, even centuries, to clear all the munitions. That is life. That is history—of the United States, of Laos, of the never-ending war between the two.

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NEWS ROUNDUP September 2013

September2013

9/28/13
UXO Accident

“On September 28, 2013, in Sepon District of Savannakhet, a 55-year old man was working in the field and started a fire to keep warm when a blast went off. The fire had unearthed a UXO, which exploded causing injury to his body and tore off his right wrist. He was initially treated at his village and was transferred to a provincial hospital, where he continues to receive medical care and follow up services.” – Via Legacies of War.