It’s rice planting season in Xieng Khouang Province, northern Lao, and for forty-nine year old Vongphone and his wife Bounmee these are nervous times. Five years ago Vongphone’s left hand was blown off when he set off an unexploded cluster bomb whilst farming. Today the land is still littered with unexploded ordnance.

“It’s hard for us because when we farm there is still UXO there and I am still afraid of it. I have to farm, otherwise we have no income,” said Vongphone.

From 1964 to 1973 US aircraft dropped more than two million tonnes of ordnance on Lao PDR. This included 277 million cluster sub-munitions, 30 percent of which failed to detonate, according to government statistics.

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Watch a film about the impact of UXO on Lao PDR