Landmines, UXO and demining

Lao Prime Minister Mr Thongsing Thammavong met US President Barack Obama in Kuala Lumpur on 21 November to discuss the expanding relationship between the two nations. During the meeting PM Thongsing Thammavong highlighted the growing partnership between the US and Laos in the health and UXO clearance ...

Two young girls, aged 13 and 8, have died after accidentally detonating a landmine near a small village in central Shan State. The victims died at the bank of the Tein Creek, on the outskirts of Mat Lan village in Laihka Township. According to a third child, ...

Laos’ National Regulatory Authority (NRA) for the UXO/Mine Action sector in Laos has set a target to reduce the number of UXO casualties to less than 40 per year and provide assistance to at least 1,500 UXO victims in the period from 2016-2020. The target was set ...

An expert working group’s third conference on humanitarian mine action within the framework of the ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting Plus (ADMM+) was held in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue on 29 October. The event, organised by the Institute for International Relations under the Vietnamese Ministry ...

“After the war, we live afraid of unexploded bombs, and we’re very careful when we go and do anything,” says Somechit Phouangsavat, an artisan from Ban Naphia, also known as War Spoon Village, in Laos. The 32-year-old works alongside 30 other artisans at Article 22, a company ...

The confrontation is immediate — a hundred cluster bombs suspended from the ceiling on fishing wire. This is the display that greets visitors to the Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise (COPE) centre in Vientiane. Between 1964 and 1973, more than 580,000 US bombing missions made the once-tranquil ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen will attend the opening of the UN’s General Assembly in New York on 25 September and has vowed to push demining as a development issue, despite it not being on the UN’s agenda. Speaking at the Sokha Hotel, the premier questioned the issue’s ...