In earlier posts we described how a Lao construction company undertook the construction of a road without first clearing the roadway of old ordnance. Their actions put their workers at grave risk and ignored the safety of villagers who live near the construction zone. In the video embedded below we show how WHWV came...
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It wasn’t the first time someone has approached us with ordnance in hand, but it was the first time that my video camera was running and I captured the excitement on tape. We were in a village to discuss the safe removal of some ordnance and I was filming the team’s discussion of how...
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One-year old Pome faced a bleak future if he could not get treatment for his foot. He was born with a birth defect known as “club foot” (talipes equinovarus) but had never received medical care. People in his village knew him as the boy “with his foot on sideways”. His parents had no knowledge...
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A fifty-year-old man in Sop houn Village was attempting to expand his rice field. He died alone in the field so no one knows the exact detail of his death, but it was clear from the nature of his wounds that he fell victim to a cluster bomblet. Over 20,000 Lao citizens have been...
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This cluster munition should never have been moved, but we found it sitting on a tree stump. Obviously, some villager carried it from the place where it was found and placed it on the stump. Villagers know the risks associated with handling old American ordnance; they accept those risks because they want to keep...
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Noi is a soft-spoken grandmother living in Sop Houn. Her two accidents with old ordnance have left her frightened to dig or plant. Since she is a subsistence farmer, her fear is a terrible occupational handicap. In this interview Noi describes her most recent accident and shares her feelings about the event that so...
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During Project Phongsali we found numerous cluster bomblets designated the “M-83” in and around Sop Houn Village. This device has three fuses: an impact fuse, a mechanical timing fuse, and an anti-handling fuse. Containing over 200 grams of high explosive, they pack greater destructive power than most other, more frequently encountered, cluster munitions. The...
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In impoverished villages children and teens often turn to scrap collecting as a way to contribute to family finances. On good days children can earn wages equal to adult laborers. On bad days, they get killed when they mishandle bombs and other dangerous objects. WHWV produced this video in order to expose the realities...
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The parents of a nine year old boy discuss the tragic events that occurred on the day he tagged along behind two of his classmates who were collecting bomb fragments to sell as scrap. As events unfolded, the parents had to make a desperate dash to a primitive hospital hoping to find medical help...
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A young widow discusses the accident that killed her husband. They were a poor couple who had recently experienced the death of their only child. The man envisioned using explosives harvested from old ordnance to stun fish, a practice the Lao call “bomb fishing.” His desperate effort led to his death. WHWV produced this...
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