Warriors face 'death' in peacetime

Having to declare their blood type and be prepared to take casualties at every step, these are the ways bomb disposal workers start their workday.

Early one morning in October, many young men and women gathered in Ward 2, Cam Lo town, Quang Tri to prepare for a bomb clearance mission in the local rice fields.

Everyone is in uniform and busy preparing their equipment before going on a mission. They take turns putting on boots, trowels, ropes, colored markers, and metal detectors. The MAG bomb disposal team is focused on listening to instructions from their superiors.

Participants must declare their blood type and listen to regulations on mine safety and how to handle an incident. In a place that is considered a battlefield, even the smallest mistake can lead to loss of life.

The group quietly entered the contaminated area. The weather was overcast. The area to be cleared today was a few rice fields in Cam Lo town. Earlier, the clearance team had found a mortar shell and two cluster bombs. Everyone said that, surely, there would be more.

MAG's bomb disposal team No. 9 was divided into small groups, each group in charge of an area of ​​about 50 square meters that had been roped off and marked with colored stakes placed by NPA (Norwegian People's Aid) in advance.

Teams of two slowly move metal detectors through muddy fields with bare stubble, where the summer-autumn rice crop has just ended.

Every now and then, the machine beeps, rising and falling in rhythm. If the beep is loud enough, it means a metal object is somewhere about a foot below the detector. “It could be a bomb, it could be just a piece of scrap metal,” one employee explains.

A worker runs a metal detector through muddy fields in Ward 2, Cam Lo Town, Cam Lo District, Quang Tri Province. Photo:Xavier Bourgois.

After a bit of searching, the team found what they were looking for: cluster bombs. One of them looked remarkably intact, its casing glistening in the sunlight, though partially covered in mud, unlike the others, which were often found rusted or partially broken, revealing dozens of small iron balls.

These fist-sized bomblets have been responsible for thousands of deaths since 1975. They are part of a class of explosives known as cluster bombs, which release hundreds of smaller bomblets that often remain scattered over large areas long after conflicts have ended and are difficult to clean up.

Cluster bombs are dangerous because they often land on the ground or at shallow depths, making them particularly vulnerable to human contact. More than 100 countries have signed a treaty banning the use of these weapons.

“The footprint of a cluster bombardment is very different from other types of explosive ordnance,” explained Resad Junuzagic, country director of NPA Vietnam. “If you find one or two cluster bombs, you will find others in the same area.” Junuzagic said the fact that the US Air Force provided extensive maps documenting its wartime bombing plans greatly helped the clearance process, although the accuracy was not perfect.

The cluster bombs found by MAG Team 9 were deemed immovable and would be detonated on site. A bomb disposal expert would set the explosives, working alone to minimize casualties in case of an accident. Finally, everyone retreated to a safe distance and five agents with loudspeakers spread out in each direction, warning the local population of the impending explosion.

“4..3..2..1... Explode!”, the captain shouted, before a loud "boom" echoed across the field.

A cluster bomb was detonated on the spot. Photo:Xavier Bourgois

See more photos:People facing the threat of landmines

Long term effort

Over the past 20 years, Quang Tri has received the attention, assistance and cooperation of international friends in overcoming the consequences of war. Since 1995, the Government has allowed Quang Tri to receive many non-governmental organizations to participate in mine clearance and land clearing. Organizations such as MAG (UK), SODI (Germany), Peace Tree (USA), Project Renew... have contributed many outstanding results in clearing bombs and mines in this land.

Bomb and mine experts agree that it will be very difficult to remove all explosives and mines left over from the Vietnam War. However, they all agree that effective clearance requires the cooperation of all parties, from international organizations, governments to local people.

Project Renew, launched in 2001 and funded by NPA and the US State Department, has connected international organizations. In 2014, the idea of ​​creating a unified information storage system on bomb disposal work in Vietnam was put into trial and since 2015, it has shown clear effectiveness when NGOs are specialized and overlap is reduced.

Various activities to support mine victims have contributed to helping victims, their families and affected communities reduce material and mental damage and improve living conditions.

At the end of 2013, Dong Ha city and Quang Tri town were included in the Renew area of ​​operation, benefiting from educational programs that contributed to raising awareness of mines and UXO among local people, especially school-age children. The whole province has more than 360,000 students and people who have had access to the “Mine Risk Education” program.

Rusty shells from the war are displayed at the Mine Action and Clearance Center in Dong Ha city, Quang Tri province. Photo:Xavier Bourgois.

Residents now play a crucial role in the clearance effort. MAG’s rapid response teams receive dozens of reports every day of bombs and mines found in their homes. But it also highlights the fact that in the villages, people still live with mines and bombs every day, with the trauma of wartime still seemingly intact after all these years.

Previously, many experts estimated that it would take up to 300 years to remove all the bombs and munitions left in Vietnam from the wars of decades ago. Following the efforts of MAG, NPA and many other NGOs in the clearance of explosive ordnance, we see that there is still a lot of work to be done.

Meanwhile, the Director of NPA in Vietnam expressed optimism when talking about the plan to completely remove bombs and mines from Quang Tri: "We are very confident with the current approach and progress of cluster bomb clearance, hoping to complete this work by 2020."

"It makes a huge difference when you can do something that takes hundreds of years in five years, or even six or seven years,"Junuzagic said. For a long time, people have believed that removing all bombs and ammunition from Vietnam is unrealistic and impossible. But, perhaps there is still hope.

NGOs like NPA, MAG, and others have destroyed more than 370,000 items of explosives across Quang Tri since 1998. No one knows how many more remain in this war-torn land. For Junuzagic, it seems like the time has come to finish this seemingly never-ending job.

According to VNE